With a shaky United Air and American Airlines holding a pile of my FF points I'm wondering if there's any way those points can be 'moved' to some other plan for a while without huge penalties.

I'm in Canada. The government supported Air Canada is a 'partner' of UA so there might (?) be a switch potential there from UA to AC's Aeroplan.

But perhaps some of you are already investigating what to do to protect your FF miles and could offer suggestions?