With the exception of the recent Starliner fiasco, there are never more people on board the station than there are seats on the visiting spacecraft. In the event of a catastrophe, the Soyuz and Dragons function as lifeboats. To leave the station, you need to be able to close the station hatch from the spacecraft side. If you didn’t, the entire station would depressurize in your face when you undocked, which could cause a navigational hazard for the escaping ship.
Therefore, it must be possible to crank the station hatch shut from the visiting vehicle side, and, it stands to reason, the reverse is true.
This is a photo of the space-facing side of Shuttle / Dragon docking port on the station. The middle is a target to assist pilots in manually flying into the port straight and level. It was needed for the shuttle, newer spacecraft have automatic guidance. At 12 o’clock is a handle to help pull the hatch shut. (To open, you push the hatch in.) At 6 o’clock I believe is a socket you can put a crank into to seal or unseal the hatch. At 10:30 is a pressure equalization valve.
Even if Canada would merge with the US, surely it wouldn’t become a state. We all know the importance of the Senate at this point, and how the two-senators-per-state rule affects things. At the very least, each province would want to become a state to get more senators, and it may be in the best interest of some of the larger provinces like Ontario or Quebec to subdivide to gain even more, if they can get away with it. Goodness knows the idea of splitting California has been floated by some to try to get something closer to senator-per-capita parity.