The link above is to a petition to the Canadian Government, as requested by Liberal MP Ted Tsu. 25 original signatures are needed. The formulation of this, more work from Lynne Swanson (Blaze) and review by others, sent to Mr. Hsu’s office by Atticus and put into pdf format by Schubert. It is now ready to roll:
PRINT PETITION PAGE — Petition to Canadian Government FATCA
SIGN THE PETITION
Note: SIGN, do not print your name
You must include your full address (printed) including postal code.
Only “hard” copies with original signatures are accepted; do not submit electronically, do not scan, etc.
THEN, GET AS MANY OTHER SIGNATURES AS YOU CAN (limit of four (4) ORIGINAL signatures to a page. Each page must be printed exactly as the link and signature spaces provided; for additional signatures complete new page, etc.)
SEND SIGNED PETITION PAGE(S) to MP Ted Hsu directly:
The Honourable Ted Hsu
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada
K1A 0A6
Note: Sending Mail to a Member of Parliament
Mail may be sent postage-free to any Member of Parliament at the House of Commons address above.
Thanks for your participation and help!
Congrats on the petition. Is there a deadline when you would like all of the petitions to be sent to Mr. Hsu’s office?
Voyons,
Someone else may know if there is a specific deadline, but as this is needed re negotiations and possible signing of an IGA with the US by Finance Minister Flaherty, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE.
Just to clarify (Parliament is finicky about these things, I’ve heard):
SIGN, do not print your name
You must include your full address (printed) including postal code
Only “hard” copies with original signatures are accepted; do not submit electronically, do not scan, etc.
No reason you can’t do as I’ve done and email the PDF to some people you know who might wish to sign it and/or also collect signatures, but repeat Calgary’s and my instructions to them re how to prepare the document and where to send it.
I don’t think there’s a deadline, but sooner (as soon as possible) rather than later is important — if there is going to be an IGA at all, it likely will be announced before Christmas and maybe a lot sooner. For this to make any difference, it needs to go to Hsu QUICKLY.
Thanks.
PS One of my correspondents who doesn’t visit this forum but who got the other petition from me a couple of days ago, congratulated me/us on this petition, noting that it covers ALL so-called US persons and not just persons who were born in the US while their parents were living there. It is more inclusive.
Right away, Calgary411.
BTW, glad your fingers don’t have frostbite!
Done — printed, signed and mailed. Thank you Blaze, Schubert, Dr. Hsu et al for getting this together so quickly.
I have signed up to attend the Eastern Ontario Federal Liberal meeting which will be held in Carleton Place on November 9, from 12 to 5 pm. I have requested a table for the petition and FATCA info and to see if other Brockers who aren’t necessarily members of the Liberal Party can attend to help man/woman the table. I have been told that Dr. Ted Hsu will be there and can speak to his FATCA questions in Parliament and the petition. If all goes well it should be possible to convince attendees to take a petition home (or to receive an email copy) to get more people from their various areas to sign.
Now waiting for answer from chair of the event as to table and other Brockers attending.
Done.
@Voyons,
You may want to create a separate post re: Nov 9th, otherwise your comment will likely get lost in a sea of comments. I’m in Ottawa, but doubt I can make it Saturday the 9th. There are some other Ottawa area Brockers who may be able to attend though.
I am waiting to see what exactly we can ‘get away with’ at the Carleton event before reinviting people to attend.
If possible, I would like to be able to hand out other information beyond the Fact Sheet. What do you think? What about the article that appeared in Maclean’s / CanadianBusiness.com? Would there be a copyright problem?
Much more impressive and effective than signing a form letter is writing a letter in your own words, even handwriting it.
@gaucho,
This is a petition (to be printed from the link in the post) to be presented to the Canadian Parliament and has to be formatted in a specific way, with approved wording:
You’re correct, though, that personal letters are very important, likely more effective relayed electronically than lost in a snail mail pile. Correspond from all fronts.
@Gaucho: Many of us have written a multitude of letters, e-mails, etc to a huge number of people: Prime Minister, Finance Minister, Foreign Affairs Minister, Citizenship and Immigration Minister, our own MPs, Opposition Leaders, Finance, Foreign Affrairs and CIC critics, Finance Canada, Canadian Bankers Association, Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Privacy Commissioner, etc.
In addition, Victoria and I have written several articles which have been published in a wide variety of publications.
The petition is being done at the suggestion of Kingston and the Islands MP Ted Hsu. He suggested we do a petition following Parliamentary guidelines after he submitted over 50 questions about FATCA in a House of Commons Order Paper.
I drafted the petition following those guidelines, others reviewed it and Atticus submitted it to Mr Hsu’s office to ensure it conforms to requirements. When Mr. Hsu’s office has 25 signatures (more is even better), Mr. Hsu will present this in the House of Commons on our behalf.
Those of us who have been writing will continue to do so until we have some resolution. This petition is just one more way of making our voices heard.
What’s FACA? 🙂
Good night — did no one notice this before now? Thanks, WhiteKat. I’ve fixed that title.
Haha, I forgot that I’d noticed it when you first posted it, Calgary411 – so I frantically reviewed the petition for the type-o. Of course, the petition was pristine! Whew, although I hadn’t mailed it yet (tomorrow, now that my husband has signed).
Do you have to be a “US person” living in Canada
to be able to sign the petition?
@Maureen Ott,
No, any Canadian can sign (be behind) this petition. It affects all Canadians. Make sure address and postal code are included with the signatures.
@Calgary411,
I think maybe Maureen is not Canadian.
…and, Maureen, WhiteKat just pointed out that you may not be Canadian. If you are not, you can’t sign the petition to the Canadian Parliament. (unless I’m totally off base)
And of course if anyone is organising an anti-FATCA petition to their government in another country, we’ll be most happy to feature it on the website site too!
You must be Canadian to sign it.
You must be a resident of Canada to sign the petition. You do not have to be a Canadian citizen.
No one living outside Canada can sign the petition–not even Canadian citizens living outside Canada. “Snowbirds” who are temporarily outside of Canada, but who have a permanent home address in Canada can sign.
I have just submitted 26 signatures from Mr. Hsu’s district here in Kingston. It only took a day and a half to gather them all. People here are furious over this the second they hear about it. Cab drivers, nurses, doctors, university professors, students…those are some of the people who have signed.
Altogether it looks like we have nearly 40 signatures in less than a week and I know of two people who don’t participate at Brock who are also now gathering signatures. At first I thought the possibility of getting 100 signatures in a short amount of time was not doable. Now I’m not so sure.
I’ve got all mine in now but, am going to continue gathering them anyway. It cannot hurt to have more than 26 from this district. I have an event to attend tomorrow evening and will bring more sheets with me.
Just wanted to update as to where we stand with the number of signatures we have. We needed 25 and we are way over that already so great work everyone! Keep gathering them if you are able to..the more we have the better it is when Mr. Hsu brings the petition to Parliament.
I gathered a few of those 40 yesterday evening. My first question to the group was did they know what FATCA was? Blank looks, and this is a politicized group. I was ready to explain and they all signed. Practice run for a larger group on Saturday.
Certainly the more signatures there are plus signatures from across Canada will send the message that this is not the work of one isolated irritated person.