Hey UK and France... Canada here. Just wondering... You still have our backs eh?

Northern Brit here: we have to have each other's backs. The only way we're getting off Mr Bones' Wild Ride is together ❤️ we can do this.
Resist. Rebel. Revolt. ✊
- I want to get off Mr Bones' Wild Ride, I'm tired

- Fuck trump. Canadians are our friends and family.
  As an American, I agree with this message 100%.

Hell, a lot of Americans still have your ~~banks~~ backs.
- I hope that is a typo.
  
  ROFL, yes it is. But given the current state of the government here nabbing federal government budgets, it's a hilariously ill-timed one!
- Uh, a lot of Americans want to join up
  
  If any country started invading the US, they would face fierce resistance from every household they attempt to pass.
  Except Canada. Canada's numbers would swell as they moved through the US. They'd get handed free guns.

Hey, Canada! Have you considered EU membership?
- That would actually be hilarious
  
  And not even impossible. The EU council and commission can basically freely decide if a state counts as "European".
  I think the biggest hurdle might be that Canada would immediately be the 5th most powerful member state because of their population.
- I would honestly be stoked
- We still use the u's (colour, etc.). Is that a prerequisite?
  
  That just shows that you did not fall into the degenerate ways of your southern neighbours.
- I don't think Canada should fully be in the EU, but some kind of set of bilateral arrangements like Switzerland has would be a good start.
  Since Canada has lots of historical ties with the UK, it might work out well to have some kind of arrangement with the UK, Canada and the EU. That would let Britain start to undo some of the damage from Brexit, while also allowing Canada to reinforce those ties to the UK.
- We didn't know we had that option. But hell yeah... what do we have to do? Make Google and Apple put a "West Europe" label over Canada?
  
  "West West Europe"

Hey EU, we'll upvote your countries if you upvote Canada. Interested in equal trade?

i was wondering around Berlin once upon a time. in the park behind the parliament.
a slightly overly helpful german said "excuse me. are you lost?" i mumbled "no no, not really"
they walked beside me for a bit and said "ah you are english. i will take you to the parliament it's just over there". and i agreed
then they said "your boys died for my country" which really took my breath away
so yeah we got your back cananadia. that's what we do when the fundamentalists kick off. even if we have to die

Most Americans have your back too...it's just our messed up voting and education systems that let the lunatic fringe gain all the power. For a representative democracy, it really doesn't represent the people.
- According the most recent elections, most Americans don't.
  There has to be a point where Americans who don't support chaos stop saying "this isn't who we really are" and start admitting "huh, I guess we're assholes now."
  
  Elections tell you, semi-accurately, what THE VOTING POPULOUS WANTED OR WAS FOOLED INTO BACKING. So you got data on less than 40% of the population and half were against this.
- Hell yeah, im just waiting for a blue state to announce intention to secede and join the EU. But that might be messy.
  ;(
  A messy dream.
  
  States cant secede without war. It is a kinda silly dream anyway. It is better to let the red states rot and have a display of how their ideals fail and how blue states flourish, then take our country back, then go through the insane process of digging out the roots and backdoors they are rushing to put in place as we speak

- https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F-glHAzXi_M

From the UK and personally, 100% yes but not sure I feel the rest of the population would agree. I mean, a lot of us turned our backs on the EU and there's a lot of cross over with US right wing nutters.
However, I would believe that when push comes to shove, we would be generally willing to defend Canada, Australia and NZ over anyone else, and then European countries at the next level. The reaction in support for Ukraine was pretty universal here and there are still lots of donations and support that is not shared with any African, Asian or Central/South American countries having similar problems.
Basically, you're white so yes you can count on us!
- Well we do have the same King as the UK does. That counts for something doesn't it?
  
  That's a very good point and can't believe I didn't think of that! Surely the British army would have to protect "his majesty's realm" or some bollocks like that.
  I just read that Canada hosts Britain's largest overseas base, although it seems to be for training purposes.
- “Basically, you're white so yes you can count on us!“
  Russia?
  
  If we rolled back a decade, Putin wasn't around and something happened like idk, China invaded western Russia, I can imagine us helping Russia.
  I should change it to "your population is mostly white so yes you can count on us". I say this as an English born non-white person who has seen the differences in public reactions to Ukraine and other conflicts (Syria, various African ones, Gaza etc). Can't say for certain it's because of this reason but certainly feels like it!

FWIW, most people in blue states would probably have your backs too. The province most at risk would probably be Alberta, which... is Alberta

France here, our mainstream media is currently either billionaire-owned and pushing Trump and Musk admiration or publicly owned but influenced by our current government (Macron and co.) which does everything possible to cosy up to billionaires so they haven't yet (and probably never will) called Trump a fascist or Musk a neo-nazi.
You came and died in France during two world wars in the 20th century but I'm afraid France as a nation isn't gonna have your back in this timeline - except if we manage to elect a real-left government next time.
Good luck!
- TIL about article 5, thanks!
  I really hope mimitary action won't happen...

France here, oui bien sûr!
- Viens sur notre instance française toi
  
  Relou de recréer un compte, je ne savais pas qu'elle existait en découvrant Lemmy :(

yes i am the president of those countries im glad you asked
- Wait... UK, doesn't have a president... I think this guy isn't legit!

Yeah sure but the government wants to access your encrypted data first by installing a back end into your iCloud data.

If it ever comes to it you can count on me. Sorry we put you guys in this position.

Australia too, we got ya..

Inasmuch as we can, yeah. None of our planning so far has allowed for the possibility of Moronica turning into a loose cannon and going around threatening all its friends and allies. As with Ukraine, if Moronica decides you're fucked, you're fucked, and there's not a whole lot we can do about it.
- If none of your planning prepared you for that, you need new planners.

Uk here, for sure.

I’m an American who lives in the UK and I’ll go to war for you guys before I ever go for the US military.
- American who's lived his whole life stateside. Agreed.

What does it really mean to have each-other's backs?
I think one thing would be making some agreements in advance when it comes to refugees. Make it easier for Canadians to escape to the EU if the US does something stupid, and make it easier for Europeans to move to Canada if Russia does something crazy.
Other than that, I don't know what immediate steps could really be done. I'd love it if Canada would adopt some of the European privacy regulations, ditching the American-style laws currently in effect. But, a lot of things wouldn't be easy to change. Our cars, appliances, construction techniques, electricity voltages, plug designs, etc. are all very American-style, and those kinds of things have a lot of momentum.
But, I don't really see a downside to making the movement of people a little easier. I think plenty of Canadians would love to live and work in Europe. I think a fair number of Europeans would love to live and work in Canada -- at least once Canada finally adopts proper vacation lengths, parental leave laws, etc.
- A different electrical system would mean that all safety laws about electricity wouldn't apply, there are probably work-arounds for that, but you'd lose the benefit of harmonized rules for hundreds of millions of people.
  And while actual Canadians would like Europe's privacy laws, the Canadian oligarchs (the Weston family, the Irvings, etc.) probably wouldn't. Same with parental leave, vacation time, etc. And governments don't have a good track record of listening to Canadian citizens instead of the oligarchs / business interests.
  Personally, I'd love for Canada to become more European, but I know there would be a lot of resistance.
  
  There's already EU territory with 110V systems, even 60Hz, or more precisely said Guyana is a clusterfuck of different systems. Standardisation would be nice but it does have limited market impact so the EU is comfortable to just not. Also the main reason European stoves won't work as intended in Canada isn't 220V, you do have 220V, but because they're expecting three 220V phases to be fully powered, they can pull up to 13kW with everything at full tilt. Most can be configured to draw less and be hooked up to a single phase, though, you could use those. Modern DC converters don't mind the differing voltages and frequencies in the first place and with DC motors being quite popular making e.g. a blender dual-voltage is actually quite simple, which leaves us with things like hair dryers and I mean who cares.

Sure we will help you refound the FLQ

Absolutely. Never met a Canadian I didn't like.

They where supposed to have Ukraines back but we've seen how spinless the Europeans are when it comes to standing up to empires.

They don't even have their own backs. Look at their military spending. It's pretty low.
- They have nukes as defence.
  
  Nukes don't replace boots on the ground.

Let's see... The UK....who needed America to get involved to end WW2 and France who are literally a meme for surrendering these days (despite having the greatest military track record of any nation still standing).
I'm sure they got your back. Lol.
- France is only a meme if you know nothing about history, and assuming you're American (as if that isn't extremely obvious) that sounds about right
- I don't think France would be deterred by (what generally seems to be) an American meme
  
  Is it only a meme in American spaces? I learned the meme from my German family growing up so I thought it was at least a meme in general.
- What an incredibly deep ignorance about the modern world.
  If you're curious about how countries militaries actually stack up these days I'd suggest looking into the results of some of the recent NATO joint exercises. The French military is actually quite formidable with a lot of recent heavy intervention in old colonies and anti terrorism strike force actions lately... now, nothing can really compare to the insane US military budget but France is pretty fucking serious.
  The UK is a joke, though.
  The real sleeping bears are the Baltics though. Those fucks are scared shitless of Russia and have heavily invested in widespread training in an effort to present Russia with an occupational nightmare due to partisan resistance if they ever invade.
  As a contrast while China has a shit load of stuff there was a massive amount of military supply corruption leading to a really high practical failure rate. They've got infantry for days of course, and their navy is quite serious... but there's a strong suspicion that China's airforce is much weaker than numbers would suggest.
  
  UK and France both have nukes. They just need to let Canada borrow a few for a while if Trump starts mobilizing the US military for a special operation.
  This is also kinda interesting... https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2025/01/28/canada-poland-nuclear-energy-cooperation-agreement
  It would normally be a nothing burger... except for the timing of it. Poland and Canada both getting threatened by nuclear powers, and when Canada's PM is on his way out and there's a whole bunch of other shit going on he randomly finds the time to go over to Poland to make agreements on both defense and nuclear energy. Maybe nothing, but it's a bit odd, isn't it?
  
  Their navy is trash. Where are you getting your facts?
- That's .. an interesting take on history. It seems filtered and has a weird PoV.
  Maybe brush up a bit, okay?
- Ya think France has nukes in Saint Pierre and Miquelon?
  
  donate some nukes to Canada
  Nothing to see here, though. That, um, was a tall subterranean grain elevator. Thanks for thinking of us. Yeah, great weather we're having.
  
  Listen I would give Canada some nukes, but something tells me America is currently not inclined to give Canada anything lol.
- these days
  (Comment has time traveled 80 years)
  
  Not when they surrendered dingus. The meme/joke that Frances official flag is a white flag has been going around since I was a kid in the 90s and both my little brothers also know that meme.