Introduction: Canada, the Corpo-State

Don't let the maps fool you. Canada no longer exists. Instead, the largest country on the American continent has become the newest plaything of the world's megacorporations: the largest enterprise at corporate nation-building ever attempted. Corporations own seats in Parliament and participation in political life is determined by productivity and property value…

After going through a refugee crisis, a separatist rebellion, many many food crises and a corporate coup d'État, Canada has just begun to regain its footing as an economic powerhouse. In Europe, in the NUSA and in Japan, they speak of Canada as a cornucopia, a developed economy to invest in and siphon profits out of.

Meanwhile, on the streets, agrocorps move workers around the country to maximize profit, overworked husks in corporate towns are paid in Petrochem-Fun-Bucks and the rest live on the streets, clutching their agent waiting on the next contract. People die because they can't pay the antibiotics they need to save their arm from the infected Biomonitor they had to install on the cheap to work for EuroBank.

They call those who lived through the collapse and through the Long Crisis the cyberpunk generation. They are desperate, hungry, angry, armed and, most importantly, they remember that things don't have to be like this.

Welcome to the Dark Future

Montréal, Canada is the setting that I use for my Cyberpunk 2020 and RED games. There are many reasons as to why, but I, as a Game Master, have a tendency to want to invent my own things and strive to cover themes that I relate to more. Night City, as a place, as its own themes and struggles and locations, and I wanted to give myself the room to be creative on my own terms.

My goal with this lore dump was to create something that was mine but that still fits within the greater world of the Cyberpunk games.

This is not a complete "lorebook" for Canada in the Cyberpunk 2020 timeline: I might have invented a timeline and come up with a lot of details for specific regions of the country, but there is so much left to be discovered by my fellow Canadians. I hope that this will inspire you to create games in this region. If you do, I hope you will share it with the community.

So yeah.

Burn corpo shit, chooms.

"4cafés"

What the lorebooks say about Canada.

While I did try to follow “canon” information from Cyberpunk 2020 and Cyberpunk Red books, such as presented in Home of the Brave and in the official timelines, there is little information available on Canada.

In Home of the Brave, the only details we have about Canada are these:

• In 2002, Canada and the USSR are hit by a mutated virus. Canadian crops are severely hit, causing a massive food crisis.
• In 2020, the majority of fresh food is imported into the US: the breadbaskets of the world include Europe, Canada and OldSov Republics.
• This quote:
  • Canada was one of the countries least affected by the Collapse. Vast resources and a small population made life easier. The slow rise in global temperature made Southern Canada an agricultural paradise. Being such a stable area, most of the major corporations set up large operations across the country. Open Corporate military force kept the American Nomad population from streaming over the border. Many of the smaller Nomad Families did find their way into Canada, but only with the full cooperation of the corporations in question. Many of the small families were hired and trained wholesale. CHOOH2 production is now one of Canada's largest agro-exports. The new luxury market in hardwoods is its largest growing industry. But the true scope of the Canadian economy encompasses all of the major corporations, products and services of the world. The national government is all but gone, replaced by the corporations

With that in mind, let's begin.

OUR HOME AND PURCHASED LAND: Canada in 2020

Population ........................................ 63 million

Literacy Rate .................................... 82%

Languages ........................................ English, French (official)

In this map: the 17 Consulates of Canada. All marked cities are either consulate capitals or cities with populations of above 1 million.

Canada climbs out of 26 years of chaos, violence, economic struggle and corruption. The Canada of the 20th century is no more, replaced with a fac-simile propped up by the world's megacorporations.

In the 1990s began "The Long Crisis", a generation-defining series of cultural, economic and social shocks that greatly weakened the Canadian State. Canada's economy buckled in tandem with the United States', and economic uncertainty led to a very narrow separatist victory in the 1995 Quebec Referendum, which was then judged "insufficiently representative". All the while, american refugees started crossing the border by the millions. They were hoping for a better life, but only ended up joining the millions of already homeless and jobless Canadians. Riots, terrorism and nomad clans rose up and caused chaos. During that tumultuous decade, the Confederation almost collapsed.

But, unlike in the United States, Canada was saveable. A cabal of American and European megacorporations (Militech, Eurobank, Petrochem, All-Foods and Biotechnica) supplied the country through the Long Crisis. They financed the stretched Canadian military and trained police forces. They fed the hungry millions and provided medecine. All of that corporate help was provided in exchange for political favors, which the corporations cashed out in 2004. That was the "Corporate Coup". In 2004, the federal government voted itself out of existence and wrote the constitution of the new Canada: a Canada openly by and for the world's megacorporations. Citizenship became conditional, only given to the wealthy and their children, while normal people became "residents", losing the right to participate in political life. Seats in Parliament were given to the wealthiest companies in the land. Provinces became "consulates", and their parliaments were dismantled in favor of small councils of corporate representatives.

IN THE MARITIMES...

Corporations have made the maritimes into a new manufacturing hub for steel goods and other heavy industries. In the countryside, Petrochem and SovOil refineries churn away, in a deadlock race to knock the other out of the region. European and American businesses have transformed the Consulate of Halifax, with its population of 3 million, into an international shipping hub, with automated warehouses, drone-transports and contracted temporary residents running from job to job.

IN QUEBEC...

The hardwood and mining industries are in constant expansion. The countryside is populated by corporate towns and massive organized crime organizations. Biker gangs and mafias, whose size and influence sometimes rivals the American Nomad Clans, emerged from the remnants of the separatist rebels,

IN ONTARIO...

The population toils in the massive Toronto Metroplex, a seemingly-infinite metropolis that spans from Ottawa to Niagara Falls where most of the American corporations in Canada have established their headquarters.

IN THE PRAIRIES...

The land is owned by agri-corps and biotechnology comglomerates like Petrochem, All-Foods and Biotechnica. Millions work the farms in corporate town and are paid in company scrip, which have become so prevalent that they rival actual eurodollars in value in the region.

IN THE GREAT WHITE NORTH...

The mining and wood harvesting megacorporations reign supreme. Corporate towns are omnipresent. Global warming has made the southern parts of what used to be the territories of Canada into more sort-of useable land, which are currently being fought over by the agri-corps.

IN BRITISH-COLUMBIA...

British-Columbia is a battleground consulate where the American and European hegemonic megacorporations attempt to resist the "Japanese Bloc", an alliance of investment firms and corporations like Arasaka and Fujiwara. Corporate espionage, assassinations and edgerunner jobs are plentiful.

Next Section: Welcome to the Dark Future (1994-2020)