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First things first: Queen Elizabeth II cannot die. Not now. Not in 2017. With all the political and economic uncertainty right now, the last thing the world needs is to lose the very personification of stability.

The Queen is up and about after a brutal cold kept her in bed for nearly two weeks throughout the holidays. But the health scare put thousands of people around the world on notice that the end of the Elizabethan Age might be nigh. This is particularly true of Canada: Aside from the U.K. itself, nobody has spent more time drilling for the death of Queen Elizabeth II than us.

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Below, a partial list of all the behind-the-scenes plans and mechanisms designed to click into place the moment “long live the King!” peals out from Great Britain.

Prince Charles becomes the King of Canada automatically

After a sovereign’s death, the Governor General’s job is to drive to Parliament Hill, stand in front of a cabinet meeting and proclaim that Canada has a new “lawful and rightful liege.” But it’s all just window dressing; Charles would automatically become Canada’s head of state the moment his mother dies. This isn’t just British tradition, the clean succession from one monarch to another is encoded right into Canadian law. “Where there is a demise of the Crown … the demise does not affect the holding of any office under the Crown in right of Canada,” reads the 1985 Interpretation Act. The Crown itself is the institution; it doesn’t matter who’s wearing it — and the 1931 Statute of Westminster holds that the U.K. can’t, say, proclaim Paddington Bear their next in line for the throne without first getting Canada’s permission. The system is similar to the U.S. presidency. Lyndon Johnson became president at the precise moment that John F. Kennedy’s heart stopped. Johnson’s subsequent swearing-in aboard Air Force One was only required for him to start giving orders, not to become president.