Global Seagulls and the New Reality of Immigration: http://t.co/CW5d8cQ8Dq – 2011 @CAFreeland article suggests shifting def of citizenship
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) November 10, 2013
In view of Isaac Brock Society interest in the Toronto Centre by-election, the invitation to certain Toronto Centre candidates to align themselves with the anti-FATCA movement at the protest, I post this 2011 article by Liberal Candidate Chrystia Freeland.
Who is Chrystia Freeland?
According to a Government of Canada site -as of April 25, 2013:
Chrystia Freeland was born in Peace River, Alberta, in 1968, and attended the United World College of the Adriatic before studying at Harvard University, from which she received a B.A. in History and Literature. She was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to continue her studies at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University, where she earned a Master’s degree.
Freeland began her career in journalism as a stringer in the Ukraine writing for the Financial Times,The Washington Post and The Economist. She then worked for the Financial Times in London as its deputy editor, editor of its weekend edition, editor of FT.com, UK news editor, Moscow bureau chief and Eastern Europe correspondent.
From 1999 to 2001, Freeland was deputy editor of The Globe and Mail. More recently, she served as the US managing editor of the Financial Times, whose American edition became the FT’s single largest edition under her direction. She was also responsible for the editorial development of US news on FT.com.
Chrystia Freeland is now global editor-at-large, Reuters. She serves as a key figure on Reuters Insider, and as Reuters principal on-air pundit for other external broadcast partners. Freeland is a senior contributor to Reuters.com and plays a leading role in Reuters Summits and in Thomson Reuters global Newsmaker series. She appears frequently on television and radio news programs in the US and globally.
Freeland is the author of Sale of a Century: the inside story of the second Russian revolution (2000), which details Russia’s journey from communism to capitalism. Her profile of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, which appeared in the FT Magazine, won a Business Journalist of the Year Award in 2004. Freeland is currently writing her second book on the global super-elite for Penguin Press.
Freeland sits on the advisory board of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and is a board member of the Women’s Refugee Commission and the Overseas Press Club of America. She has been honoured as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
A Canadian citizen, Freeland currently lives in New York City with her husband and three children.
The fact of residing in New York City suggests that she may be a “U.S. person” who is subject to the rules of U.S. citizenship-based taxation and could be directly affected by FATCA. Should U.S. persons be able to hold “political offices” in Canada. Remember the experience of New Brunswick Premier David Aldward.
In any case, the article is very interesting. Includes:
In the age of the Internet, the jet airplane and the multinational company, the very concepts of immigration, citizenship and even statehood are changing. …
“Citizenship law is struggling to catch up with the new realities of global work,” he told me. “It is still based on the notion of a sedentary population, rather than the nomadic population that many of us have become.”
One of the biggest shifts is in the thinking about what we used to call “brain drain.”
“Increasingly, immigrants who live elsewhere are being viewed as assets,” Mr. Boyle said. “This is a paradigm shift; this is a seismic shift. The notion of brain drain is ridiculed — instead, it is ‘brain circulation.’ The notion is that people can return as tourists, that people can be ambassadors for their home countries, that people can serve as business agents.”
“It is no longer about brain drain, or even brain gain,” Dr. Wang agreed. “It is about global brain circulation.”
One of the countries that uses its diaspora most effectively, Mr. Boyle says, is India. “India is increasingly looking to its diaspora as an asset,” Mr. Boyle said. “Many people argue that India’s technology development would not have happened without the overseas population, particularly in Silicon Valley. So the government has had to rethink its attitudes to its citizens. India has set up a whole government ministry solely to look after the expat Indians.” …
Attitudes toward these global citizens can get more complicated in the countries they live and work in, even as they retain their ties and emotional connections to their original homes. The cherished American idea of the melting pot, after all, is largely about cutting ties with the old country.
But Mr. Boyle said that in the age of globalization, a diaspora closely connected with its country of origin could be as economically valuable for its host country as it is for its native one: “Diasporas are a win-win. Silicon Valley wins, and the home country wins.”
That’s a big shift. But some countries and policy makers are predicting our concept of citizenship will soon be stretched even further — that we will go from Dr. Wang’s seagulls to thinking of countries as virtual, rather than physical, communities. In a presentation to the Canadian government in 2008, Alison Loat argued, “Canadians can no longer be thought of as only those living in the territory above North America’s 49th parallel, but more accurately as a potential network of people spanning the globe.”
It would be interesting to hear her views on citizenship- based taxation and FATCA.
@Dash
@YogaGirl
Ms. Freeland has an obligation to disclose the voters of Toronto Centre:
1. Whether she is considered by the U.S. to be a U.S. person and subject to U.S. tax laws and reporting requirements; and
2. If so, whether she intends to comply with those requirements (particularly FBAR and FATCA). Remember that FATCA is intended to override any and all Canadian laws.
To put it simply, the public has a right to know if it is electing an MP that would treat U.S. law as superior to Canadian law in Canada.
It is your view that U.S. law is of no effect in Canada. That may or may not be Ms. Freeland’s view.
@USCitizenAbroad
“1. Whether she is considered by the U.S. to be a U.S. person and subject to U.S. tax laws and reporting requirements;”
I can answer that question since her situation is really not complicated. She will be a U.S. person for the 2013 tax year–whether by the green card test or the substantial presence test–but not in 2014 and beyond–as she has abandoned US tax residence (and US immigration residence if she ever had it). Since, if elected, she would not take office until some time in December, the overlap between her U.S. person status and her service in Parliament is unlikely to be more than a few weeks, most of which the House will be on Christmas recess.
If the voters in Toronto Centre have a problem with that brief period of U.S. personhood, that is of course their prerogative. But all the facts are on the table here to make a decision, at least on this front.
“2. If so, whether she intends to comply with those requirements (particularly FBAR and FATCA). Remember that FATCA is intended to override any and all Canadian laws.”
She strikes me as a responsible person who will want to wind up her US affairs in an orderly manner, so I assume she will comply with FBAR for 2013, the only year it will apply to her. But, as I’ve said, whether she as a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil chooses to apply with US law is really no one’s business but her own.
As for FATCA, it doesn’t apply for at least two reasons. One is that it doesn’t kick in until at least mid-2014, and her so-called “U.S. personhood” will be behind her by then. But also–FATCA is a requirement for banks and governments, not for individuals.
As I’ve said a couple of times before, I might have a different view if she were to be Finance Minister or perhaps any cabinet minister responsible for managing the Canadian federal government’s money. She might then reasonably be asked whether she would turn over sensitive Canadian government financial data to the USG. But she isn’t in the running for a cabinet position–she is running to be a third party MP.
“To put it simply, the public has a right to know if it is electing an MP that would treat U.S. law as superior to Canadian law in Canada.”
Agreed–but this is a question of HER views–it is not a question of the USG’s views. Whether the USG views her as a “U.S. person” or not is irrelevant to the question you are posing here.
Her political views are relevant. Her U.S. personhood status is not.
“It is your view that U.S. law is of no effect in Canada.”
It is certainly also the view of the Isaac Brock Society so I’m definitely taking it as a starting point for discussions on here. Certainly I’m assuming that the majority of people–perhaps not everyone–on here hold this view, and I’m proceeding from that point.
“That may or may not be Ms. Freeland’s view.”
Again, certainly SHE considers herself to be a US person is very relevant. Whether the USG considers her to be a US person is irrelevant.
Dash1729, being an immigrant to Canada, I can attest that the limbo thing is the same as the reverse. Immigrants are always disadvantaged during the waiting periods and even after if they happen to possess foreign degrees and licenses for their profession.
I agree that if Freeland were to retain her USP status into 2015 and become a cabinet minister, this would be a problem.
USCitizenAbroad, as I mentioned above. I don’t think Freeland has hardcore views on much of anything and she will toe up to whatever line she is told to sell. Her status as a USP is important in our opinion because we know about FATCA and if FATCA were more widely known, it would be important to those in that riding too. As long as she is able to duck though I am pretty sure she will, but is it likely that with only six years in the US she has a green card already or was she possible working on a visa? This would make her USP status easier to shake and her possible USC kids are really on an issue for her and her accountant. However, it would be nice to see a politician, who is in the same boat as many find themselves with the overreach of the USG, acknowledge that it is a problem and to either say “Yes, I think it’s sovereignty overreach” or “No, the USG has a right to tax its citizens as it pleases.”
Let’s not forget that historically the Canadian govt has never (until the Eritrea thing anyway) sided with duals and PR’s when their country of origin comes knocking. It is Canadian policy to not interfere. Poor policy, imo, but that’s how they have rolled in the past.
And I think her lack of substance is twofold – first, her previous viewpoints might have been too American-centric and needed to change in order for her to be chosen for JT’s “team” and second, the Liberals are carefully avoiding declarations of a definitive nature to avoid getting into any pointless arguments with the Cons and the NDP. They have a convention coming up in early 2014, so perhaps we will get something more than but I wouldn’t look to Freeland to do much more than evade, rah-rah the imaginary middle class and talk about mythical Canadian priorities. Very generic.
It’s probably my American upbringing but when people twist their views this and that way so they can run for office for a particular party – I immediately suspect douche-baggery. In Freeland’s case though, she is so used to writing whatever bullshit of the day agenda that sells that she probably has no real hard core beliefs. Makes it easy to talk whatever side of the debate pays the best or offers her the greatest career boost. It’s very GenX.
@YogaGirl
I was referring specifically to the damage to the democratic process caused by having immigrants who are unable to vote. The inability to vote is often a low priority for the immigrants themselves–many other things tend to be more immediately important from an immigrant’s perspective–but disenfranchising a group of people is, I feel, ultimately much more damaging to the democratic process. In the community in which I live in the US, for example, 30% of the population is foreign born. That’s a significant part of the population who have been disenfranchised at some point in their lives–and many still are.
I believe that other problems that immigrants face stem from this basic inability to vote–even though the inability to vote often seems like a minor concern to the individual immigrant at the time.
In the USA, at least for legal immigrants, lack of licenses, etc, tends to be less of an issue as a lot of immigration is via sponsorship by an employer and if you can’t work in the USA, you won’t get anywhere near a green card. OTOH waiting periods tend to be longer in the USA than in Canada.
Ms. Freeland may have her green card. The most likely scenario is that she used an L-1 visa to transfer from the Financial Times in London to New York. The L-1 visa provides a fast track to the green card, and she probably jumped ship to Reuters once she had the green card in hand. However, she didn’t live in the US long enough to be a covered expatriate and to owe tax.
However, she needs to act quickly, and I hope for her sake that she isn’t so caught up in the whirlwind of the campaign that she’s forgotten in case she intends to stay in Canada, elected or not. If she lived in the US for 6 years, that probably means parts of 7 calendar years. If she doesn’t formally give up her green card by Jan 1, that will grow to 8 calendar years and she’ll be subject to exit tax, etc.