State Sen. Liz Krueger, a prominent Democrat from New York City who is also the chairwoman of the state Senate Finance Committee, proposed the ideas as state Democrats only have weeks to counter President-elect Donald Trump before he takes office.

Krueger believes such thinking is warranted.

“It’s not unreasonable to think outside of the box,” Krueger told Politico.

While New York becoming a Canadian province could be a fairytale ending for Krueger, the state withholding federal taxes is only slightly more likely. The state senator hinted at such an idea if Trump chooses to send less federal funding to New York, something he has suggested if some cities won’t work with federal immigration authorities.

Trump’s “border czar,” former ICE Director Tom Homan, has put Trump’s previous threat into more concrete terms, saying he will block federal funding for states that don’t cooperate.

“That’s going to happen. I guarantee you,” Homan said.

A complete block of federal funding would leave New York $85 billion in the hole. As Krueger suggested, they could make up those funds by sending less in the hundreds of billions of tax dollars it receives.

“We’re talking a lot of money,” Krueger said. “We’re talking money we couldn’t possibly replace unless we started sending the feds a lot less money.”

Krueger had proposed that New York should join Canada back in September, before Trump claimed the White House. More specifically, she proposed leaving with Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont.

“But that’s why I thought, ‘Oh, why do I have to leave this country? I love this country, and if Trump wins a second term, it’s not actually my fault or people in New York.’ So I thought I would suggest to Canada that instead of us all trying to illegally cross the border at night without them noticing … that they should instead agree to let us be the southeast province, a new province of Canada.”

She justified the idea, saying, “Basically everybody in these states are progressive Democrats,” and that they “would fit in pretty well with the political philosophy of at least most of the Canadian elected officials.”

Forty-three percent of voters in New York voted for Trump in the 2024 election, while the other three states all garnered at least 30% of the vote for the president-elect.

Krueger said she “got back some unofficial responses” and that the idea is “probably sellable” in the Canadian capital of Ottawa.