The following is a work of fiction. Our job is to make sure it never becomes history.

It was dawn on a mid-21^st century morning as the signal was given and the American armored military vehicles crossed the borders of Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana into the Canadian Prairie Provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba.  Following a safe distance behind the military were caravans of Americans who viewed Canada not as the enemy but the land of opportunity with much of America having become uninhabitable or no longer suitable for the planting of the crops they knew.  How had it come to this?

America was no longer the politically polarized nation it had been during the opening decades of the century. The Republican Party, being the only political party in the world that denied climate change, had long ceased to exist being replaced by a center-right party based on fiscal conservatism and family values with a respect and tolerance of non-white people.  Like most nations or families when threatened by an outside element, Americans had united.  The enemy was the planet which had finally rebelled against man’s exploitation of it.  The temperatures rose as did the sea levels.  Many of America’s great coastal cities including Boston, New York City, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa, Houston, Baltimore, New Orleans and Seattle were partially or completely underwater.   Even some inland communities were adversely affected when the rivers periodically began to flow in reverse. In the rural areas water for irrigation and livestock was an ever increasing problem.  Climate change with its temperature rises coupled with drought and flooding had made growing the crops that had supported the denizens for generations impossible.  America largely became a nation of climate change refugees.

Militarily the biggest blow had been the loss of the Naval Base in Norfolk, Virginia. The sprawling base had been home to America’s Atlantic Fleet since before World War II and was the economic hub of the area.  It had to be abandoned years before it became submerged because the constant refurbishing had become economically unsustainable.

Canada being further north now had a climate much more like America’s heartland at the turn of the century attracting agriculture. Several of its major cities including Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton were well inland and therefore less impacted by sea level rise.

Officially bilingual but with the exception of Quebec, English was the language of commerce and trade; Canada was a culturally comfortable place for displaced Americans. For many decades Canada has a better social safety net program but the sudden and massive influx of Americans would make that unsustainable, at least in the short run.  Negotiations and quotas failed; if they couldn’t get in legally Americans simply snuck into Canada illegally.  Finally the American government felt it had no alterative other than to invade Canada and effectively take it over.

Americans and Canadians had lived in peace and harmony for generations. Hatred was difficult to arouse.  The Canadian resistance to the American invasion was muted.  First, Canadians found it repugnant to kill Americans.  Second, they knew in a full blown war American military might was vastly superior.  This is not a case of might making right but when you couple those factors with the Canadian tradition of being welcoming to those in need of refuge and a fresh start the result was somewhat inevitable.

Again, the above is a work of fiction. It doesn’t have to be!  My goal is to inform by shocking so that we work to prevent such events from ever happening. 

This article was written well ahead of publishing in order to accommodate my year end hiatus and is the property of tellthetruthonthem.com. Its content may not be used without citing the source.  It may not be reproduced without the permission of Larry Marciniak.