People have posted and commented on their consulate visit experiences. This is very useful information, but has been difficult to access as it appears on various threads. So, I have assembled them into a Directory of Consulate Reports, organised by location. I expect to add more reviews over the next day or two as I continue to search past postings, and of course we’ll add new reviews as they arrive.
Keep ’em coming! You can write your consulate visit story on this thread or any other thread (we’ll keep an eye out for them) and we’ll transfer them to the Directory. Thanks to everybody for sharing your experiences!
For the Consulate Report pages, I have edited or excerpted some comments. The original posts and comments remain on their threads and have not been edited.
Canada
Europe
@Cecilia
Thanks for confirming. Guess you’ll just have to copy everything onto a 2012 form.next year. The never ending saga! Hopefully it will end in January 2013 for you.
Toronto Consulate, April 15, 2014
US Tax day! First day of Passover 2014 – – the celebration of freedom from slavery! Also, the day of my renunciation appointment at the Toronto Consulate! I didn’t pick this day for the appointment but it sure is ironic.
This is my second meeting at this consulate; last April I came for my “first of two” appointments to pick up the renunciation paperwork and then was supposed to go home and think about this momentous act. Now, the process requires only one appointment. But, because I needed to get a number of things in order before taking the step and signing the documents, this was my second visit in many years.
You would think that a second visit would be more comfortable than the first. In some small ways it was. I knew where there was a nearby parking garage (on St. Patrick Street, just south off Dundas, $14/day) and what the back (Simcoe Street) side of the consulate looks like (this is where one enters for these appointments) and that there is a Tim Horton’s up at Simcoe & Dundas if one arrives early and it’s really cold out so you don’t want to stand outside for a long wait before being allowed in for your 2: 00 PM appointment (the time at which all such appointments are arranged). But for me it was still a bit intimidating (tho I can’t totally rule out that maybe it was my lingering cough/head cold combined with the 4 cups of wine at the previous night’s Passover Seder combined with the ever-miserable hearing difficulties that makes lots of encounters “interesting” in their repetitive oral interactions).
Anyway, I arrived just a bit before 2:00 and went up to the three large, dark-fabric well-padded entry guards just outside the entry door. I was surprised that there was no long line of non-citizens hoping to get in (to make arrangements for a visa or who knows what else), as there had been the previous April. A few moments later I realized that they were all inside in the non-citizen waiting room; I guess the consulate folks took pity on them because of the icy wind and let them in early, which is nice to know.
The largest guard (with his balaclava somewhat covering his mouth, which made it hard to read his lips – – something I often need to do) asked why I was there so I showed him the emailed appointment information sheet I had received weeks earlier from the Toronto Passport office. He looked at this printed appointment, and my US passport, and redirected me into the airport-like screening area just inside the door.
This first small inside area is the hard-surface-but-functional airport-like “search and scan” area populated with quite a number of well-padded entry guards standing around watching you place all your STUFF in a box to go through the machine and, then, yourself through the stand-up scanning machine as you ease yourself closer to the “fully-entered” door. Just like at the airport, if you set something off (as I did with my watch and bracelets plus the metal bands inside my ancient briefcase), you will be wand-scanned. Definitely your STUFF will the looked through. I have no knowledge of what sort of further scanning they might request if the wand-scan/digging wasn’t satisfactory to them; I (and my stuff) were approved. Then, before you are headed through the interior door onto your appointment, if you have any electronics (cell phone, electronic car key, etc.), these are taken from you and put into one of their small wooden cubbyhole holding cells until you finish your business and are on your way out.
Once through the 2nd (interior) glass door to the right, as a US person I was directed up a ramp to the next floor, along the edge of the “non-US-Person” waiting area, and then into a small room on the other side into which the elevator is tucked. Along with one other “US Person” and a quiet polite not-quite-so-heavily-padded guard, I took this small elevator up to the 3rd floor. Here, the elevator opens onto a bright, clean but, again, institutional-functional set of closed doors, 5 glassed “tellers” wickets, a couple available bathrooms and a chair-filled waiting area. It took only a couple minutes for one of the consulate staff behind one of the wickets to be free and call me over.
When arranging this appointment, the TorontoPassport folks supply a thorough range of emailed documents (to just read and/or complete) to prepare one for this meeting. Included is a detailed list of things to bring (in my case, someone born in the US, my birth certificate, marriage certificate, US passport, social security card, Canadian Citizenship card, certificate & passport, all the consulate’s renunciation forms and a heavy-duty Canada Post mailing envelope which eventually will bring me my Certificate of Loss of Nationality). Some documents are emailed after completion back to this office before the appointment date is set, but I also brought unsigned copies of all these forms even though their office probably had these same things ready for this meeting time.
All these docs were shuttled under the glass upper-wall through a narrow trough to the consulate staff on the other side. The officers (they were all women on that day) spoke to me through a microphone; fortunately, the transmission volume control was good, the small speaker (on my side) was in good repair and each person I spoke to kindly took the time to speak slowly and clearly so I could hear everything. Indeed, the entire hour-long interaction was handled patiently and respectfully.
There are several stages to the meeting-at-the-wicket/passing-papers process punctuated with “okay, you can sit down in the waiting area now and wait to be called again”. The staff patiently explains everything. I was given a paper chit with a number and told to wait for that number to be called again. Each wicket has a lit-up sign indicating the chit-number holder that they want to see next and there is a larger lit-up chit-number-sign in the waiting room too (which I didn’t notice because I, anxious to attend to the visual cuing, kept looking back at the wicket area signs).
There were less than 10 other folks in the waiting room, just the one other for renunciation (or relinquishment, I’m not sure – – he talked quickly – – and constantly – – and I’m sure I didn’t take in all he said but I did get that he was there for a similar “release me” meeting). Over the course of the hour, I worked with several staff members. The guard who had escorted me up the elevator remained in full “observation mode” nearby.
Apparently an email had been sent to this other renunciate the day before indicating that the consulate’s credit card connections were not working and, thus, the $450 fee could not (as usual) be paid by credit card. I had not checked my email since the morning of the day before so didn’t know this; and, as it turns out, I had received no such email with what could have been important information. Just imagine if I had arrived – – not knowing this and not having had the cash that, very fortunately, I had decided to use as payment – – and was sent away!!!!!!!!! (YIKES and Geeeeee@#>%&!<?#^#*#).
After all the review of each of the documents, payment and a few non-threatening questions about why I was doing this (information that was clearly outlined on their forms but I guess they just wanted to hear me say it to them that I’ve been in Canada for 45 years, my children were born and raised here, my children and grandchildren still live in Canada, my whole professional life has been here, my husband is still here, almost all my friends and doctors and bankers and lawyers and favorite shops are here – – well, maybe not all the shops…..), it was sign-the-document-in-duplicate time. The consulate staff member read passages to me from each form before passing it to my side to have both copies signed. Lastly, with right hands raised in the air, she read – – a few words at a time (and I repeated, same) – – the oath of renunciation. After orally "affirming", I signed this last form. A very long hour of up and down and up and down, but the DEED WAS DONE.
In the end, all my personal documents – – save my US passport – – were returned to me along with a receipt slip indicating the payment of the $450 (which shows renunciation as the purpose for the payment). Now, I had emailed the TorontoPassport email staff-people several weeks prior to this appointment asking if I could bring a document that they would sign/seal indicating that I had taken this oath and was awaiting my CLN (both for the bank and because I have a 94 year old frail step-mother in the US so I’d have to have something to show at the border if I no longer had my US passport). The reply email had been something like “no need, we have a document to offer at that time”. Little did I know it would be this small receipt for the $450 and nothing larger or more official looking.
Perhaps, just perhaps, the BorderCrossing folks MIGHT recognize this mini-doc and let me through without finger-wagging and scowling, but I really doubt the bank will recognize/relate to this slip (and July 1 is coming fast).
Further, I was advised that CLNs to Toronto consulate-renouncers are now taking 6-9 months (but then, who knows, the consulate staff also was under the – – inaccurate – – understanding that renouncers’ names are placed on the published list-of-shame within 3 months after renunciation is approved…..).
Despite the wide and deep range of emotions I had felt leading up to this appointment in the past few months (and, particularly days) prior to this appointment, (and am still shaking slowly off), I cannot say this time or process was, itself, particularly upsetting or scary or worrisome. It probably took me longer than most people because of my limited hearing, but there was nothing intimidating or rebuking. The staff there know full well why people are doing this and know it is our right to do so. My step-mom cries each time I’ve mentioned this appointment, and my very-proud Washington, DC-resident ancestors (who sold all the elected politicians, appointed big-and-small wigs and hangers-on all their trillions of cigarettes and candy bars over the decades) would turn over in their graves, but the consulate staff members were fine to work with.
That being said, I’m REALLY glad it’s over. Maybe I’ll have another 4 glasses of sweet Passover wine tonight to celebrate, just because I have fully participated in this 21st century Exodus. No blood, frogs, lice, wild animals, dead livestock, boils, hail, locusts, darkness nor death to the first born this time, but stress, Stress, STRESS, MORE STRESS, then money and signed-under-penalty-of-nasty-legal/financial consequences forms. You, too, can do this and come out alive (and no 40 years in the desert before getting your CLN); just have the sweet wine waiting for you on the other side. ☺
@ LM,
Congratulations on completing your escape today. Glad it went smoothly and that’s quite neat it occurred during Passover.
Thanks very much for your report – the details give a really good picture for those who will be going to Toronto consulate.
@ pacifica777
I noticed that there hadn’t been a report on Toronto for quite a while so I let the creative writing juices flow; I do hope the comments will ease others’ angst in preparing for this last step. Now the CLN wait begins….
@LM,
Good to read your experience at Toronto. It was better than mine last year, and perhaps they shuffled personnel and sent back the abrasive person who presided over my appointment, which is an encouraging thing.
Thank you for sharing it with us – it gives those next in line an idea of what to expect in this otherwise opaque process.
Enjoy your sweet wine. And may all of us safely reach the oasis on the other side of this desert we’ve been forced to wander.
LM, congratulations. I’m glad you made it through the process of your second appointment, mostly unscathed. I saw it all in technicolor, your description so vivid. Thank you for the telling of your Toronto US Consulate experience — to go into the history book that Pacifica maintains and to help the next persons who will go to Toronto for the same. You did good! Sweet wine waiting on the other side was never better earned or warranted.
@Calgary411 – Thanks so much for the from-afar hug; it means a lot!
BTW, I realize the politicians there were a wash, but I have been curious about whether you connected with either/both the US-born comedian and/or musician from out there RE the upcoming John Richardson presentation. Every little bit helps. With Charl’s & GrouchyandMad’s help, info letters and FATCA Factsheets now have gone out (snail-mail or electronically) to almost 150 famous US-born Canadians to raise their awareness; more will be done this next week……
LM,
I wish I could tell you that I’ve engaged them. Disappointingly, I have not heard back from one of the persons whose names you provided me and to whom I sent my correspondence. Have you; has anyone else? The only reason I can see is that people who recognize they may be affected are ‘protecting themselves and their families’ by staying out of any kind of light.
That’s what I’ve seen over and over. We need the media to put this — and what our government has done — boldly in front of people in order for them to not perceive people who are speaking out conspiracy theorists.
Why would the ordinary citizen believe that the Canadian or any other government has negotiated and signed, behind closed doors, an IGA with the US for something as outrageous as bringing a foreign law, US FATCA, into our SOVEREIGN COUNTRY — and then has buried its implementation in some omnibus legislation? To them, what does that even mean?
Why would the ordinary citizen think this is about much more than ‘tax evasion’ — the rights of a segment of the country’s society targeted by national origin?
Why would the ordinary citizen think this would affect them? Their perception (very well orchestrated) is that ‘tax evasion’ is being rightly fought by their government leaders. Canada will be stronger. Good for all those government leaders that are making this work — I am not a tax evader and I am all for every last one of those bastards caught and punished.
@ calgary411
The direct-mailings (snail-mail) that I have done have not included any return address, just reference to the important websites for more info.
GrouchandMad (and I, on a few occasions) have sent the 2 docs via email; in my case, I have not heard back from anyone.
This morning I was wondering whether letters to the editor in various major newspapers (and/or magazines) across the country might bring some interest. Even if one is not writing the letter to comment on a news story that WAS printed there, couldn’t one comment on a news story that SHOULD be there? Perhaps this is called an “Op-Ed”. But people do read these things. Any thoughts on this idea?
I’ve written Letters to the Editor that haven’t been published (as far as I know). There are also Op-Ed’s and interviews of Brockers and MapleSandboxers here: http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/brockers-making-news/. Lynne Swanson and Victoria Ferauge have been a great team in getting op-ed’s posted. Don Whitely has many articles in BC publications. Several of us have been interviewed by various journalists so have lent information. Suzanne has contributed to The Squamish Chief that got a lot of viewing.
Continuation of the same should be ongoing; wherever there is an opportunity, it should be taken so a few more might see it. What we really need is mainstream coverage so readers here and there will pay attention when they see such Op-Eds and articles as above. Hopefully the Challenge will finally grab some needed attention. Thanks for all your work on this, LM.