Americans Desperate to Flee Trump Can Hook Up With Canadians on This Site

A new website is offering Americans the chance to avoid Donald Trump as President by helping them get hitched to a Canadian.

"Make dating great again," the Calgary-based MapleMatch.com homepage reads, with a plaid-clad couple overlooking what appears to be a typical Canadian forest. "Maple Match makes it easy for American to find the ideal Canadian partner to save them from the unfathomable horror of a Trump presidency."

The site's CEO Joe Goldman, a 25-year-old entrepreneur from Texas, assured Calgary radio show The Eyeopener on Tuesday that his site, and the pending mobile app, is legitimate.

"Absolutely this is serious," he said. "The 49th parallel is just a line and Americans and Canadians have so much in common … A lot of Americans are quite uneasy, that's certainly a fact."

Goldman told the Guardian that in one week, the site went from about one hundred views to 200 requests-an-hour to sign up. As of Tuesday, 13,000 people, including about a quarter of Canadians, had signed up. According to CNBC, Goldman has even signed up himself, hoping to find a Canuck to love.

But foreigners who marry Canadians do not automatically get citizenship, which is no easy feat. They have to go through the lengthy application process and meet certain strict criteria such as being physically in Canada for at least 1,460 days — or four years — over six years, and being present in Canada for at least 183 days over four years before applying. Canadian citizens and permanent residents can sponsor their spouses to come to Canada if they prove to be eligible.

As of Wednesday, Maple Match, which requires no fees, had a waitlist, asking potential users to fill out a form specifying their citizenship, sexual preference, and any additional information that would "make Maple Match great for you."

In lieu of a "submit" button at the end of the form, users click a "Save Me From This Madness" button.

The site is the latest online effort — sincere or otherwise — to present alternatives to liberal-minded Americans looking to flee north if November's election doesn't go their way. After Super Tuesday, searches on Google for "move to Canada" skyrocketed 1,500 percent. Recent polls are finding that around 60 percent of Americans dislike Trump, who continues to face criticism for his behavior on social media and other controversy in real life, while also dominating media coverage of the presidential race.

An Ipsos poll for Global News from March found nearly 20 percent of Americans would consider moving to Canada if Trump becomes President, with 28 percent of people from 18 years old to 34 saying they'd move. That same poll also found that 15 percent would move if Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton becomes President.

Earlier this year a Canadian radio host Rob Calabrese created a website, with almost 1 million visitors, inviting anti-Trump Americans to seek refuge in Nova Scotia.

"Donald Trump may become the President! If that happens, and you decide to get the hell out of there, might I suggest moving to Cape Breton Island!" the site stated.

Calabrese told reporters at the time he had received a deluge of messages from Americans considering it. This included an inquiry from a US Marine who told Calabrese he wanted to protect the safety of his family.

But these threats to leave don't seem to phase Trump in the least. In April, actor Lena Dunham vowed to escape to Canada if Trump is victorious, to which Trump told Fox & Friends: "I heard Whoopi Goldberg said that too. That would be a great, great thing for our country."

Follow Rachel Browne on Twitter: rp_browne