The Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act will formally empower the government of Canada to revoke the Canadian citizenship in certain cases. According to the Toronto Star, certain crimes may result in the stripping of Canadian citizenship from dual citizens:
Under the proposed changes, citizenship can be revoked from dual nationals convicted of terrorism, high treason and spying offences, or who take up arms against Canada. As well, permanent residents who commit these acts will be barred from applying for citizenship.
The Star failed to mention one crime which has already resulted in effective stripping of Canadian citizenship: Being of US national origin.
On these pages, we have discussed the international doctrines of dual nationality: (1) The Master Nationality Rule says that every country has the right to treat treat their citizens, while in their jurisdiction, as being solely of their nationality. Thus, by international law, Canadians in Canada are only Canadian as far as the Canadian government is concerned, despite competing claims by other countries for their allegiance. (2) The rule of Dominant and Effective Nationality means that dual national deserves the protection of the country with which he or she has the greater ties, especially residency. This means that even if the USA claims any particular Canadian as their own dual national, Canada has the right to protect that person as a Canadian if they are of dominant and effective Canadian nationality.
But in his letter to CARP, Mr. Flaherty has written that the government of Canada will not protect Canadians living in Canada who are of US national origin:
Our Government fully understands the separate, but important, issue of U.S. citizenship-based taxation on dual Canada-U.S. citizens. The U.S. government’s system of citizenship-based taxation is different from the residence-based approach generally followed most of the rest of the world.
This creates unique challenges for U.S. citizens who reside in other countries – especially Canada. However, as these are U.S. laws that apply to U.S. citizens, they can only be addressed by the U.S. government – not Canada. In that regard, I would encourage U.S. citizens in Canada to share their concerns with the U.S. government.
These words are stunning. Canadian citizens complain about the FATCA IGA and Flaherty tells them to take up the matter with the US government. In other words, Flaherty is telling those who need and have asked for the protection of the government of Canada to seek redress in the USA. This effectively removes them from the protection from Canada and effectively makes them subject to the laws of the USA: thus, Flaherty has rendered them Dominant and Effective US nationals–a sort of extraordinary rendition while they still remain in Canada. The Harper government, in one fell swoop, has removed Dominant and Effective Canadian Nationality from as many as one million persons in Canada. Thus, the crime of being of US national origin is equal, in the eyes of this government, with terrorism, high treason and spying.
Mr. Flaherty impressed me with his earlier bravado vis-a-vis the US, when he said he would not collect taxes for the IRS from Canadian citizens. But now I see him as a eunuch. I would argue that the Harper government must remove Flaherty–Harper can use the excuse that Flaherty is suffering from eunuchism as a result of his steroid usage. Then, Harper could have plausible deniability with regard to this IGA agreement. He could say, Flaherty was not himself during the negotiations and we did not realize to what extent that would affect his job performance. Please forgive us as we now stand up for Canada and revoke the FATCA IGA, and vote for us next time around. If they continue down this reckless path, the Harper government no longer deserves to be in leadership. They have failed in the number one mandate of every government, to protect the citizens in their jurisdiction. Isaac Brock would not be proud.
This is just the beginning of the targeting, and folks with a relationship to the US are not the only targets. According to Sovereign Man
“Over the weekend in yet another cushy five-star hotel, representatives from this unelected supranational bureaucracy announced plans for world governments to exchange all their citizens’ tax and financial data with one another.
The 34 members states of the OECD are enthusiastically supporting this measure. And it constitutes the end of whatever remains of financial privacy.
The premise behind the OECD’s destructive pipedream is, as usual, to stamp out ‘tax evasion’. But this is a misnomer to being with…”
https://iman.infusionsoft.com/app/hostedEmail/146204095/61bd819027fcd40b?inf_contact_key=a841fa1fd474f321c42ce2aeeb2b2731422ca6bd00c9278afc558231b693ad8b
The Boot-Strap Expat
http://thebootstrapexpat.com/
Our submission to Finance Canada for the FATCA IGA public consultation followed a similar line of reasoning. We sent them the following:
@refugee from America, I agree with your submission. Thank you.
@ petros, @refugeefromamerica.,@ brockers….
I would love to have this soubriquet.wellchosen
Be very afraid on this one… The Harperites definition of ‘untermenschen’ has already been promulgated, and most likely will added to over time.
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Martin Niemoller
My letter to Dear Mr. Flaherty…..I will be sending more believe me.
Dearest Department of Finance….
You are purposefully allowing another country to destroy the lives of many of your own citizens. I am retired, have worked very hard here in Canada for the past 35 years. I have proudly saved all of my life to be able to care for myself in my aging years. You are now going to let those bullies destroy me and send me into bankruptcy. Are you going to bill the US for the welfare you are going to have to now pay me? For Ontario housing?
Have you demanded all of the financial information of Canadians in the US in exchange? We may not need it now but we just might be thinking of changing to a citizen based taxation, one never knows what is down the road. This would be an appropriate time to get started collecting data now that everyone is gearing up. That is what a fair deal would look like.
Why don’t you have the guts to stand up to the bully? We could divest ourselves of all US investments and go elsewhere. It is a global world now….Germany looks like a great place if one is looking for diversity in their portfolios. Take a look at what the Japanese Bankers Association is saying…sorry, just not practical, The European Banking Federation…will opt out of US securities rather than enter into an agreement with a foreign country. The list goes on, do your homework. Why don’t we enter into an agreement with all of these other countries and all just pull out of investing in the US.
Have some guts here Mr Flaherty. We are your people, not the IRSs.
Very important post Petros.
Re the words of Flaherty: ..”…However, as these are U.S. laws that apply to U.S. citizens, they can only be addressed by the U.S. government – not Canada. In that regard, I would encourage U.S. citizens in Canada to share their concerns with the U.S. government.”
We need the opposition to pin Flaherty down and have him baldly clarify that children residing and born IN CANADA – of a US parent, or children born in the US of CANADIAN parents are considered by him to be US citizens first and foremost, who though they are Canadian residents and Canadian citizens (regardless of any inherited US status) he believes are best served by treating with the US government directly – WITHOUT the protection and assistance of their Canadian government. For example, as the designer of our children’s Canadian RESP, and the negotiator of any US Canada Tax Treaty terms since he became Finance Minister, and the chief negotiator of the FATCA IGA, it is Flaherty and the Canadian Ministry of Finance who is directly responsible to CANADIAN citizens and legal residents for the outcome ON CANADIAN SOIL.
Otherwise, he has created a special second class citizenship for Canadian children born in Canada – but of a US parent, or for Canadian children born Canadians – but in the US of Canadian parentage.
Flaherty is saying that US definitions of who it claims as a ‘US taxable person’ trumps Canadian citizenship and civil rights on Canadian soil.
And how ludicrous is that? Even more so when he speaks also to Canadian-only taxpayers, accountholders, spouses, business partners, parents, etc. who oppose his signing on to the IGA and therefore his direct enabling of a foreign law – FATCA in Canada – as imposed on one class of CANADIANS particularly, but ALL Canadians – who will pay for FATCA implementation, and ALL Canadians – who will be forced to prove that they are NOT Americans. That is a ridiculous position to take.
I think Flaherty knows that he can’t go so far with the blatant spin as the NZ government – who referred to those affected only as “US persons’ resident in NZ. Begging the question of all those who were born NZ citizens – but also inherited (without consent) US status.
Flaherty and the Conservatives just better not start referring to affected Canadians as ‘US persons resident in Canada’.
@ badger
It was even worse than US persons resident in NZ — US persons habitually resident in NZ. A person might never have set foot out of NZ and be called out for being habitually resident there, like a child habitually late for class or something. It’s a totally ludicrous phrase of course but it’s not unusual for politicians to come up with these things unfortunately. I believe Osgood gave them a good and proper elbow dig for that when he made his oral presentation.
badger, thanks for putting so well into words once again!
It makes me literally shake in impotence, in anger and in fear to have seen Finance Minister Flaherty’s statement in print. I can realize that the US trumps the automatically conferred US citizenship of those born in Canada to US Parent(s) and to children born to Canadian parents (in the US). But to now see that the births of these children born in Canada to US parent(s) (like my son, who BTW, because of a ‘mental incapacity’, is entrapped into the *supposed* US citizenship that was never registered into) and children born in the US to Canadian parents is deemed not to matter, that they would be US chattel first, is disgraceful. That Mr. Flaherty stands to protect the US IRS rape and pillage of Canadian individuals, families and this country before he protects these children (no matter now their age or their ‘mental capacity’) who had no say in where they were born or to the parents they were born makes my blood boil. Is there no morality or common sense in this absurd situation at all? I was born in the USA and chose Canada as the country I wanted to be a citizen of and to raise my children in, to work and pay my taxes and contribute to the fabric of Canadian society. Accordingly, I did what I had to do (twice in fact) to now have obtained an official Certificate of Loss of Nationality (CLN) and have it in hand to take to my local CANADIAN “foreign financial institution” to prove that I am only a Canadian. My children and anyone else’s children born to us and by some “accident of place of birth and to the person of the incorrect ‘national origin'” must be deemed the citizen that their parent(s) and they think they are not ??? What is bloody wrong with this picture? And, Mr. Flaherty, these children born to us have absolutely no US representation.
As I said previously today, the country of my birth betrayed me; now the country that I chose to live in betrays me (and especially my son, one of Canada’s most vulnerable). I will not betray myself and cringe in a corner somewhere to have Mr. Flaherty say that he will not give protection to my child born in Canada, raised in Canada, never registered with the US, never had any benefit from the US — that he will support the US and its unjust citizenship-based taxation before my son and any other “Accidental American” instead.
And, from WhatAmI,
Where is this government’s integrity in protecting and standing up for ALL of its people? Unless I am missing something — please, must we have to “read between the lines”?? Is not that in itself some sort of sanctioned tax evasion?
Is this all a bloody game? These are people’s lives in the hands of government “leaders”. Is a document, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms”, that we think to be some protection of our rights, all a sham?
(…and now for another night of peaceful sleep, realizing my Canadian government has my son’s best interests at heart in signing an IGA with the USA.)
I had written this yesterday, but for some reason it didn’t post. Reading all this makes it more apparent to me that the Canadian-only spouses of “US persons/citizens” need to be making some major noise about FATCA and the invasion of their financial privacy.
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