In an earnings call Thursday, Verizon reported strong gains for its wireless business and also dropped a piece of news that has called our neighbors to the north to attention: Verizon confirmed that it is in an “exploratory” phase focused on expansion to Canada.

On the call, Verizon Communications CFO Fran Shammo remarked, “If you look at the population of Canada, about 70 percent of that population is between Toronto and Quebec. That’s adjacent to the Verizon Wireless properties… it mirrors up exactly with what we launched here in the United States on the 700MHz [frequency].”

Shammo admitted that there would likely be regulatory pushback if Verizon were to pursue building a Canadian market, according to AllThingsD. The Financial Post cited recent rumors that Verizon might make its entry into the market by buying two Canadian telcos, Wind Mobile and Mobilicity, then growing from there.

But incumbent telecom companies aren’t confident that government pushback will be all that substantial. Canada has plans to auction off spectrum in the 700MHz range in January 2014 with auction rules that are set up to encourage newcomers to purchase spectrum. Big Canadian telecom companies are now afraid that the “newcomers” will be bigger and better resourced than they are.

Darren Entwistle, CEO of Telus Corporation, told the Financial Post yesterday that there would be a “bloodbath” among telecom companies if auction rules were not changed soon. As it stands, “newcomers” to the Canadian market will be allowed to bid on two to four blocks of spectrum, while Canada’s incumbents—including “big three” Canadian companies Telus, Bell Canada, and Rogers—will only be allowed to bid on one block.

“[Bidding on that one block is] going to be prohibitively expensive and suck a lot of money out of the industry—money that won’t go to infrastructure and technology, money that won’t go into rural coverage or support lower prices,” Entwistle told the Financial Post.