DONORS: We Did It!!
We just made our target of $18,500
PLEASE STOP FURTHER DONATIONS
The Donation button is now closed, only six days after the launch of the Canadian Charter Challenge Fund ~ and well AHEAD of our three week schedule.
Thank you all so much for being part of this important first in fighting the FATCA invasion into our honest, productive lives as Canadian citizens and residents. Together, we can make a difference.
NEXT STEPS:
- We will sign today a contract between Lynne Swanson and Stephen Kish, on behalf of all of the donors, and the Vancouver law firm of Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy, which will provide a legal opinion on the constitutionality of the proposed IGA legislation. We are issuing a bank draft to pay most of the legal fee with the remainder provided once the cheques and donations still in the mail have cleared the bank.
- We are hoping that there will be little if any money received beyond the requested $18,500. Should there be extra monies, these will be distributed per the details provided in the CCCF website.
- Approximately 30 days from today we will conduct a final accounting of all monies received, expended, and all fees paid and publish this information on the CCCF website.
Remember, this is just the first step, and we all know that the next step will be much more difficult.
“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step” ~Martin Luther King Jr.~
Stephen Kish and Lynne Swanson thank you for having the faith to take that first step with us.
The World’s One Hope
Is oppression as old as the moss around ponds?
The moss around ponds is not avoidable.
Perhaps everything I see is natural,
and I am sick and want to remove
what cannot be removed?
I have read songs of the Egyptians,
of their men who built the pyramids.
They complained of their loads
and asked when oppression would cease.
That’s four thousand years ago.
Oppression, it would seem, is like the moss
and unavoidable.
When a child is about to be run down by a car
one pulls it on to the pavement.
Not just the kindly man does that,
to whom they put up monuments.
Anyone pulls the child away from the car.
But here many have been run down,
and many pass by and do nothing.
Is that because it’s so many who are suffering?
Should one not help them
all the more because they are many?
One helps them less. Even the kindly walk past
and after that are as kindly as ever they were before
walking past.
The more there are suffering, then, the more natural
their sufferings appear. Who wants to prevent
the fishes in the sea from getting wet?
And the suffering themselves share this callousness
towards themselves and are lacking in kindness
towards themselves.
It is terrible that human beings
so easily put up with existing conditions,
not only with the sufferings of strangers
but also with their own.
All those who have thought about the bad state of things
refuse to appeal to the compassion of one group of people
for another. But the compassion of the oppressed
for the oppressed is indispensable.
It is the world’s one hope.
Bertolt Brecht
@Anne Frank
Thank you. An excellent post.
@Joe Smith
thank you for the beautiful poem.
@all
Thank you all for fighting FATCA with such passion and such hard work. I am forever grateful to have met some of you and also have found Brock as my rock in dealing with FATCA. I am pleased that I am in the fight with you.
When the time comes that more money is needed I will be there to help.
@Anne Frank…very encouraging words indeed!
Great news!
“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” – “something to say when you have nothing (more) to say” … when one needs “an ounce of conversation” and no other word will do !
Loving it !
May God help that reason and right shall prevail.
Fantastic news! Thank you for organizing this.
When it rains it pours at least in Vancouver. November in March. http://cliffmass.blogspot.ca/ 10 feet of new snow this week in the mountains, matches the contributions of Brockers.
Awesome accomplishment, and in only six days… I hear the creator took a day off at the end of his/her busy week, seems like those who have been burning so much energy should do the same.
Fantastic. Please let us know if this news hits the media so that we may send the links to Governments/Media in our home countries. This fight is just as valid for New Zealand, which is overriding our Bill of Rights in a similar fashion.
Outstanding news!
Suggest that a few $ be spent to securing an appropriate URL (or URLs) – another commentator posted a good list of “vacant” appropriate URL’s
This is heck of story for a journalist?
Why are they so devoid of curiosity?
The number of so-called “US-persons” in Canada may well equal or exceed the number of Canadians of First Nations status (about 700,000). They also exceed the number of Jewish people in Canada (about 385,000).
Naturally there are significant numbers of Canadian First Nations and Jewish people whom FATCA would also classify as so-called “US-persons”. Some are already posting on IBS. I personally know several Jewish Canadians who would be targeted by the FATCA IGA (and are blissfully unaware of it) . Special efforts should be made to reach out to both these communities.
Should the work on the $250K start today? See if you can get ‘US persons’ donate say $25 or $50 and if the legal opinion goes against, however, if you have the money available and it’s close you could process with the challenge regardless.
Even if you can get only 20% of Canadian ‘US persons’ to donate $25 that’s $5M in Canada alone.
Hell isn’t it worth giving up a 4 or 5 pints in the pub to get the IRS off your back for life at least in Canada for dual citizens or even legal residents? It’s money very well spent.
$5M to $10M would allow some employing some lobbyists to go to Parliament Hill and speak directly to MPs, get analysis for marginal MPs and target US persons in those seats to sway the vote.
Getting more ‘US persons’ online and creating a database would be money well spent.
Someone needs to get the actual figure for the lobbying campaign. $19K was easy to raise, but how about $10M or more. Even with a strong legal opinion, money will be needed far in excess of $250K.
What ‘US person’ wouldn’t give the money – very few.’s
A few lessons learned:
I hope the reigning Harper Conservatives realize that this represents $18,000 they will NEVER be receiving in supporting contributions. It’s a permanent loss of voters, members and supporters and contributors.
I’ll NEVER FORGET the Conservatives’ shameful and cynical betrayal of Canadian citizens. And I’m sure many others will ALWAYS REMEMBER as well. And I always vote, and my friends and family vote, and I make a point of contributing to political parties (it’s heavily leveraged by a tax credit) , and so do my friends and family. And they are all tuned into this issue now.
Also hope our opposition parties realize the kind of mobilized support and energy and righteous anger on tap for ANY politician who steps up to the plate in strongly opposing the FATCA IGA.
Regarding the legal opinion; suggest all keep their powder dry – is the first step in a process and there are advantages to an element of surprise in legal strategy.
Hope you received my envelope from the south.
Good that you are telling people to stop sending money.
Suggest that the excess funds be held back as there will be more bills to pay. A PR campaign may need to be established and the attorney may go over budget. So before you allocate it elsewhere…..
I am ready to send more money for part 2 as soon as the light says go.
May I suggest that when you formally hire the attorney you do a “press release.”
That press release can be circulated and it will get publicity.
We need attention and panic amongst the politicians. They need to know they are likely passing legislation that is clearly afoul of the charter. Do they want that black mark?
@George,
There will be a press release and we hope that the press picks up on this.
@Wondering – I dont think that you meant “Also hope our opposition parties realize the kind of mobilized support and energy and righteous anger on tap for ANY politician who steps up to the plate in strongly opposing the FATCA IGA.” Do you not mean the contrary?
I think that we are being a little too open in discussing financial matters here folks. I defer to the better informed but understand the benefit of “keeping one’s cards close to the chest” in some matters.
@nervousinvestor
Sorry – to clarify
Maybe I should have said:
There would be a LOT of mobilized support and energy for any opposition politician (be they Green, Liberal, NDP, BQ) who steps up to the plate to strongly OPPOSE the FATCA IGA. There is lot of righteous anger for them to tap into – and an organized network who proved they can act in concert.
Brockers; words are very important and I think its vital in public communication that we convey that the US Personhood is NOT wanted. When you call yourself Dual there is an air and pretense to it. If you say you are Dual that means you are proud of it!!!
Earlier I had wrote of an interesting term that I discovered called “clinging nationality.”
You MUST be asking your MPs for help because you have a problem and thats “clinging nationality.” Its like gum on your shoe.
Canadian citizenship is EASY to get rid of, you fill out a form, pay $100 and mail it in. Therefor anything beyond that is clinging and hard to get rid of.
The Master Nationality Act;
“Commonly known as the “Master Nationality Rule”, the practical effect of this
Article is that where a person is a national of, for example, two States (A and B), and
is in the territory of State A, then State B has no right to claim that person as its
national or to intervene on that person’s behalf. ”
http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/policyandlaw/nationalityinstructions/nisec2gensec/dualnationality?view=Binary
US State Department 7 Fam 080
“When a U.S. citizen is in the other country of their dual nationality, that country has a predominant claim on the person.”
AND the clincher;
“It is a generally recognized rule, often regarded as a rule of international law,
that when a person who is a dual national is residing in either of the countries
of nationality, the person owes paramount allegiance to that country, and that
country has the right to assert its claim without interference from the other
country.”
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/86563.pdf
Remember your US Nationality is “clinging nationality” because of the impediments placed which makes it difficult to renounce in violation of the Expatriation Act 1868.
You are not a Dual US/Canada.
You are a Canadian Citizen who happens to have “clinging nationality” with the US. I have noticed now in multiple pubs this term of clinging nationality where it is difficult or impossible to get rid of a nationality.
We MUST stop using the term DUAL.
I would hope that legal counsel does not use the word DUAL but instead uses words like dominant or effective nationality and clinging nationality.
Excellent news. Justice should and will prevail!
This fatca and us taxation based on citizenship is so wrongdoing.
C3f donation goal reached and 7 million hits for Brock today. Cool!
Would some Brockers write Peter Hogg thanking him for his submission to the government and tell him how his work was an inspiration to C3F.
He could be a good ally and may get further involved.
@Wondering – I thought that was what you meant … just thought that you needed the opportunity to clarify it . Great Day !
@George – great comment George. I have not known of a clinging nationality before ! Very descriptive !
@Em – Thank you for pointing out the hits on the Brock site ! Great Stat !
I am so smiling today ! I can’t shut up !