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.
@George, I agree 100% re: the word dual. It conveys a split allegiance, whereas ‘clinging nationality’, or ‘dominant nationality’ makes it clear our allegiance is to Canada.
I also hope Arvay refers to us as Canadians with clinging USA nationality, or Canadians deemed ‘US persons’ by USA, or Canadians with ‘US person’ status whose dominant nationality is Canadian.
@NervousInvestor, I noticed! 🙂
Em…..”C3f donation goal reached and 7 million hits for Brock today. Cool!”
What is the average unique page views per day?
After such a great day, I don’t want to spoil it but the figure of 7 million hits for Brock is not at all true. Can someone tell me where this figure came from?
@Tricia – scroll to the bottom of the page by the cyber chimps logo and there is a counter that records the number of hits. This is a cumulative thing I believe and not just for today.
Trish, it’s the counter on the very bottom left of the main page of Isaac Brock, right now at 7,004,643.
@ Tricia
It’s the total number of hits since the beginnings of Brock. It’s on the counter at the bottom of the page, just below CyberChimps (left side). Of course it isn’t the daily count. Sorry if it sounded like that. I know Petros has mentioned that we’ve had up to 10,000 hits in a day though (like around the IGA announcement).
@ ChearsBigEars
I don’t know about unique views. Maybe Admin. knows that.
@Carol
This doesn’t match at all what is on the dashboard. And I remember Peter quoting not too long ago when we topped 1 million. Something isn’t right here/
For that very special person out there, we are pleased to confirm (with many thanks):
“The twig in the closet has arrived.”
We repeat:
“The twig in the closet has arrived.”
I think Petros mentioned what the difference was once, but I can’t recall what that was, Trish. Here’s a bit I found:
http://www.wpbyexample.com/plugin/wordpress-hit-counter says:
Plugin information
WordPress Hit Counter is a simple plugin that embeds a rotating odometer style hit counter on your blog showing how many visitors your site has. source: wordpress.org (I think this is the counter on the bottom of the home page.)
http://en.support.wordpress.com/stats/
The following are not reflected in your stats:
Visits to uploaded documents and files
Visits from browsers that do not execute javascript or load images
GoogleBot and other search engine spiders
Visits you make to your own publicly available blog (when logged in to your account)
Visits by users that are logged in, and listed as admins on the blog
The two main units of traffic measurement are views and unique visitors. A view is counted when a visitor loads or reloads a page. A visitor is counted when we see a user or browser for the first time in a given period (day, week, month).
You may notice that weekly unique visitors is less than the sum of daily visitors for the same week. This occurs when the same visitor appears multiple times during the week.
You may also notice that your visitor count lags behind your views count. This is due to the way we are currently crunching the numbers. Typically a view is reported within five minutes, while it can take up to two hours to report new visitors.
@ IRSCompliantForever
LOL! And thank you. 🙂
I would recommend using accidental Americans (by birth) and incidental Americans (who relinquished US citizenship by acquiring Canadian citizenship decades ago). In case of incidental Americans, the US must prove that they retained US citizenship by either applying US-passport, filing taxes or by using any of the services offered as a US citizen. If there is no such indication in past 2 or 3 decades, US is illegally claiming them as tax slaves.
These issues must be publicly debated by calling press into attending court room, which must include correspondents from the US to understand the human cost of application of law in unintended manner to extract penalties for genuine mistakes (many of which are in fact not mistakes but normal way of living).
Has anyone thought what might happen in the future?
Providing Harper is still PM, he wakes up into a new world and finds the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled the IGA breaks the Charter. His Government now has a problem. He’s still got Uncle Sam and Canada’s banks breathing down his neck, and no IGA.
What would his options be? How easy is it to ‘re-write’ the Charter into legalised discrimination against ‘US Persons?’ What process would he have to follow to achieve this? Is it just a majority vote in Parliament? Or do there a process that involves each separate province?
What are Harper’s available options in that scenario? Does anyone know?
@Don – serious question. Needs some research. Of course the other option is to threaten compensatory sanctions and file a suit at the WTO and raise the matter in the United Nations. Somehow I dont think that with Russia’s current behaviour vis a vis the Crimea / Ukraine that the US would want ANOTHER major international conflict (even though unarmed).
@nervousinvestor – If the US is involved in an international conflict, remember the old adage from Ireland, “England’s war is Ireland’s opportunity.” Obviously the US has the resources to fight both, but it’s an interesting thought. Who knows?
To win this battle completely, we need more media coverage. I am not a gambling man, but would bet that less than 20% of the effected Canadians with a “US person” problem have no idea this is going on. They will get their “OMG” moment either at the bank, from the CRA/IRS or when they try to cross the border. The media silence must stop and stop now. This is a National issue with severe consequences for All the citizens and residents in Canada. I was so happy when I asked some silent “Brockers” to make up a name and say hello. Brock should be recognized as a savior to so many people who were lost and without direction. Harper and Flaherty do not want the secret out. I have never received any response to my letters from Flaherty, and my local MP has called my letters “spam”. The fight is with our “dictatorship” government. While the PC MPs do the happy dance knowing Canada created “second class Canadians” and also created the CRA/IRS, once the people of Canada find out, they will see through this and see the US and Canadian governments for what they really are. We will win this battle.
Just an idea… Is it possible to set up a donation fund for advertising? The government unions have plenty of our tax dollars to post full page ads in strategic newspapers to get support for their raises and put ads on the radio and tv. Can we start a campaign for our national issue? Call it “keep us Canadian” or something like that??
@nativecanadian – I agree with the media. That’s why I suggest going for the ‘super fund’ and getting as many as ‘US person,’ and indeed outside Canada, to get together $5 to $10M.
But more importantly, get a professional lobbyist group to ‘quote’ what an effective campaign would cost.
Even if Harper wakes up in his OMG morning, the IGA has been ruled illegal, the expensive battle begins to win hearts and minds of Canadians (and $$$ as well). At the end of the day, if enough Canadians say NO to FATCA, what government can shove this down the people’s throats?
There’s a tipping point in the debate, the only question is what level is it and how much it’s going to cost to get there? It’s there somewhere. It needs researching.
@Don
In the event that legislation is ruled unconstitutional by reason of violation of the Charter, the most straight-forward move by the government is to invoke the Notwithstanding Clause (s. 33) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:
(1) Parliament or the legislature of a province may expressly declare in an Act of Parliament or of the legislature, as the case may be, that the Act or a provision thereof shall operate notwithstanding a provision included in section 2 or sections 7 to 15.
I believe this could occur after the ruling of a lower court; it would not have to wait upon a decision by the Supreme Court.
The Nothwithstanding Clause has been used by several provinces and territories, but has never been invoked by the federal government. To do so is generally consider touching “the third rail”. No federal government will wish to do so.
The Wikipedia article is a reasonable summary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notwithstanding_clause
Congratulations, one and all!
To John Davis: I appreciated your definitions. Just as a comment, when the U.S. is busy proving that an “incidental American” (i.e. relinquisher) is still a U.S. tax-payer there should be a “carve-out” for those persons who were conned into getting U.S. passports because they were denied entry to the land of their birth on the passport of their country of residence and naturalization. This has happened to a number of people. These hapless folks shouldn’t be forced into an expensive renunciation. I include mention of this problem in my communications with politicians and organizations every opportunity I get.
Speaking of definitions…
I suggest that the process put in place by the IGA might be termed “information laundering”, moving personal information from banks to CRA to IRS in order to circumvent Canadian privacy legislation.
So what prevents the government from using the nonwithstanding clause to enact the IGA.
I am confused. Which avenue do people have if they do that. Is a charter lawsuit pointless with that regard?
Folks – I don’t think you need to worry about the consequences of the Court striking down the IGA. This gives the government – legitimately – 100% cover to tell the US that Canada tried but what they have asked for simply can’t legally be done. Don’t expect a notwithstanding clause declaration here – pretty sure the only one who has ever done that is Quebec and, well, ’nuff said.
FATCA is dumb legislation; forcing unwanted citizenship on people who don’t want it is dumb, taxing citizens abroad is dumb and smart legislators on both sides know all of this is true but also know there is no political upside to altering the status quo. Tax law and policy is understood by only a few on a good day, and none of this can easily be explained or sold to an impatient electorate. This is exactly what things like the Charter and Bill of Rights are intended to do where legislative pressures conspire to create dumb results – at least where the dumb results cross the line as this once seems quite clearly to do.
I strongly doubt this goes to the Supreme Court of Canada or even the Court of Appeal. Ottawa didn’t like this and I am sure will very happily tell Washington “we tried, can’t be done”. In those circumstances, I wouldn’t hold my breath expecting the US to declare all banks “recalcitrant” when they can’t legally do what is asked of them. Instead, they’ll rejig the deal to include only non-residents (a non-existent bogeyman) or else create a simple “out” allowing “prima facie” Americans to certify they aren’t and turn the page. Cursory compliance will be deemed adequate and everyone will drive on.
The bottom line is that people with US ties will be in one of the following buckets: (i) those that have become Canadian and are prepared to state that they have expatriated – officially (via a CLN or unofficially; (ii) those that want to keep their US ties and with it the prospect of going “back” some day; and (iii) those that haven’t decided which they are or want to be.
The first category will likely be left largely alone, although recent expatriations run some risk of never being able to go back depending on how bloody minded the IRS gets (and they won’t have Canada’s co-operation in looking for big vs little fish). The second category have no choice but to get in compliance with the IRS with or without FATCA. The third – well, they had better decide because the window for kissing and making up with the IRS is just about closed.
My biggest concern has been and remains the first category since it includes people who have valid grounds for asserting that they are not Americans and have not been Americans for many, many, years. This IGA simply throws them all to the wolves equally and forces them to sort it out with the IRS as if presumed “guilty” of being American without due process or any form or notice or hearing. The idea that Canada would “out” them as POSSIBLE Americans forcing them to go arm wrestle with the IRS is just plain offensive. Recent expatriates are in a greyer zone since they run the random risk that the IRS decides to go after them. They can tell the IRS to jump in the lake if they wish and the IRS won’t have any success in collecting on assets north of the border, but it is a potentially messy war to be in. Clearly they are not a priority, and starved of the information oxygen that an enforced FATCA regime would give them, the IRS will likely focus its resources on the big fish where it can find them. However, recent expats will never know if and when they can be sure they will be left in peace and that is a crying shame.
It ain’t perfect but given the realities of the situation, that is about as much as you can hope for. I know personally close to fifty people in the first camp. I’ve been here a long time and have been constantly surprised at the number of people I have known for years and years who I later learn were born in the US and came here as a baby or had US parents. Virtually none have ever “complied” or dreamed of it whether because they don’t think they are dual or just never gave it a moment’s thought. They are an invisible minority of close to a million – maybe more. Given a life time led as a Canadian and a whole web of normal activiites – RRSP’s, company pension plans, RESP’s, TFSA’s, principal residences and “foreign” bank accounts in their home towns, it is simply impossible to “opt in” to the IRS web without putting virtually all of their life savings at risk. For them, unfortunately, there is simply nothing to do but not feed the beast with information to be used to torment them. Some will have a better case than others to prove expatriation if put to the test, but none should be forced by Ottawa to be put through that costly, risky and fundamentally uncertain ordeal by a foreign government while living normal, law-abiding lives here. Hopefully, this Court challenge will accomplish just that.
Anne Frank,
…and free those ENTRAPPED into extraneous US citizenship (those with a ‘mental incapacity’ like a developmental disability or age-related dementia, do not understand concept of ‘citizenship’ so cannot renounce / must not be influenced by anyone) and a parent, a guardian, a trustee does not have the right to do so on such a person’s behalf, even with a court order? Their family, their supports are in Canada — not the USA.
Calgary411 – an EXCELLENT point. I don’t know who is instructing the Vancouver lawyer but all of these posts should be copied over to him. After he does his opinion letter, he is going to need to prepare affidavits to back up his Charter challenge. An affidavit from the guardian of a trapped American living in Canada would be a perfect headliner. Another from someone who left years ago and finds themselves trapped by the retroactive change in the INA (they became Canadian when loss of US was automatic, then got told that they retroactively had to prove “intent” to relinquish) including maybe someone who got a passport after being told at a border crossing that they needed to because of place of birth and the change in the law. We will collectively need to begin to come up with Jane and John Doe’s able to sign such statements and, if need be, be cross-examined on them by Ottawa’s lawyers.
A lot of square pegs getting hammered into this round hole by a crude statute.
Another thought – pretty random really – is that the US would raise more stinking revenue if it just charged everybody outside the US $200 a year for a passport from the date of their last filed tax return. I’ll bet yoyu they would raise twice as much money and the only cost would be a loss of fees to the accountants and border city lawyers getting rich fleecing people of low to no means in order to “comply” with a system under which they “owe” nothing in any event!