I asked in a comment,
What will be discussed? Can anyone from here be there?
AnonAnon answered:
@calgary411 –
I’m planning to show up at Joe Oliver’s luncheon on Monday with a protest sign. I hope others can join me.
Opportunity? for conversation or at least protest to the new Finance Minister, Joe Oliver
April 4, 2014
Minister of Finance to Address the Canadian Club of Toronto
Minister of Finance Joe Oliver will deliver remarks at a luncheon hosted by the Canadian Club of Toronto, on Monday, April 7, 2014. The Minister is scheduled to speak at approximately 1:00 p.m.
The event will take place at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel, 100 Front Street West, in Toronto, Ontario.
I have my sign prepared. It asks:
Why is a U.S. Law (FATCA)
HIDDEN
in Canada’s Budget Bill??”
@AnonAnon
I hope you have a nice day and LOTS of company!
Excellent sign, AnonAnon!!!! I hope you get to put it right in front of Finance Minister Oliver. Can we imagine his answer? Ditto from the other day?
@AnonAnon
That is a great sign. I will be with you in spirit. I hope you have lots of others
Hope the media sees you and others …
I would be there if I was not working that day 🙁
AnonAnon: I’m not sure if you are male or female, but a good way to get media attention might be to protest topless.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-votes-2014/topless-femen-protesters-ambush-philippe-couillard-1.2598973
Two women in Quebec were led away by secuirty or police. In Ontario, women have TopFredom. That is providing you are not doing it for commercial purposes. I don’t think a protest is considered commercial.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topfreedom_in_Canada
If things become tense or cold, you could always cover up with your sign. They might kick you to the curb like they did to the protestors at Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
.”Freedom of expression sometimes has unintended consequences.”
@Blaze, thanks for the suggestion, but for an older male like me to go topless would repel rather than attract attention. And I couldn’t outdo Mayor Stuporman for getting attention by boorish behaviour.
No, I plan to show up dressed as neatly as possible to blend in with the business crowd and use my sign alone as the attention getter.
Keep it classy, AnonAnon. We don’t want you compared to Mayor Stuporman. Your sign should gain good attention — with your great choice of words.
Good luck. Except for the cost of travel, I would join you as I know that a two-person protest is a little easier than a one-person protest, having done both. I hope there will be a few others to join you. (It’s a hard undertaking; thanks for the gumption in doing this on behalf of Brockers and Sandboxers!)
I would give anything to join you. I will try and cancel an appointment, but at this late date it might be impossible, damn. Could you ask Mr. Oliver to make it Tuesday so I can absolutely be there.
I am going to make up a sign this week so I can be ready for the next opportunity. (AnonAnon…if I went topless I too would make folks run for cover so you have company. Aging rather sucks.)
For my sign….um I need help here. Seeing I’m an old chicken maybe: FATCA bankrupting this granny or FATCA is throwing this granny under the bus or…….????? Allow a free vote on FATCA or You F-ing FATCA cowards HELP ME FOLKS I am not creative!
Charl, this may give you some ideas: http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/anti-fatca-slogans-for-protest-signs/
AnonAnon has the right idea with his up-to-date question to ask for his sign.
@Charl, it will be great if you can join me. You’re free to choose your own sign, of course, but here’s my thinking:
I don’t want to come across as “protesting” something on first impression. Instead, I want to ask a simple question for which there is no satisfactory answer. My intent is as much to educate Mr. Oliver’s audience (to the extent that is possible with a sign) as to address the Minister himself. I think of it as “protest jiu jitsu” — be the calm, reasonable one and let the opponents do the damage to themselves. (I’m not at all in her league, of course, but recall how effective Rosa Parks was years ago when she was arrested for quietly refusing to move to the back of the bus.)
If it helps, I will bring a second sign like mine for you or someone else to hold. They are on flexible cardboard and can be rolled up to be fairly inconspicuous for transport.
I have made a simple flyer with essentially the same text as my sign for Monday. It reads as follows (with text centered and lines spaced for landscape printing):
Finance Minister Oliver:
Why is a U.S. Law (FATCA)
HIDDEN
in CANADA’s Budget Bill??
IsaacBrockSociety.ca
I can make it available as a PDF file for download from here if someone can tell me how to do that or to whom to email it.
Good Luck AnonAnon. I wish you all the best with this endeavour.
We will surely all look forward to your report back here at the IBS.
Thanks for this!
@Ann, calgary411, GWEvil, Blaze, Charl, northernstar, bubblebustin, and anyone I’ve missed,
thank you all for your support on this upcoming venture. I hope it doesn’t turn out to be entirely Quixotic. Best case — my picture in the press, holding the sign, with or (I hope) without a police escort.
Anyone who can, please join me. I have a second copy of my sign and will have some flyers to hand out, too. Don’t be afraid of the police; I’m only joking about that.
@AnonAnon
Good luck. If I lived closer I would be with you Monday.
@AnonAnon
I have been dreaming of a HUGE protest, topless, bottomless, whatever, I’m not fussy. I can’t believe I finally have an opportunity for a wee protest and I really don’t think I can make it. I need a little “heads-up” time to get the schedule cleared, late Friday planning is tough. And are you saying Joe wouldn’t change the day for me?
I will be away for the month of May and I fear that something big might be planned then and, after all my moaning, I won’t be there. (I hope you will all come and extricate me from the border if my rage happens to leak out. I do travel with two HUGE, very “loyal to me” Shepherds so if nothing else works I’ll just let the “gals” have a go at ’em.)
Is there anything special we can bring you in the pookie? Do you look good in orange? I am so jealous that you are getting a chance to do this and I do hope many can join you. Can’t wait to hear what transpires.
Will be with you in spirit AnonAnon. Thank you for taking this on. Wish I could attend, but can’t reschedule work. Hoping at least one other will keep you company.
I have enlisted a few friends to join me tomorrow. That way we will have a couple of people to hold signs and two or three more to distribute flyers. I have added some descriptive text to the back side of the flyer:
“FATCA is a U.S. law that requires Canadian financial institutions to report the financial affairs of Canadian citizens and other permanent-resident taxpayers of Canada to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. It has the potential to transfer large amounts of assets acquired in Canada to the United States Government. At the very least it imposes an extremely costly burden on Canadians to comply with the U.S. reporting requirements. Canada has much to lose from this U.S. extra-territorial tax overreach.
“The current Canadian Government has quietly agreed with the U.S. Government to assist in implementing FATCA. It is trying to obtain Parliamentary approval for the agreement by hiding it in the current Budget Bill, thus preventing adequate debate on it. WHY??”
Thanks again to all for your support. I hope it goes well.
AnonAnon,
How I wish I could be there to hold up a sign for you. Thanks once again for leading this latest advocacy effort. I’m glad you’ve enlisted some “friends of the cause” to be with you. It will go well!! Good work!
Anod Anod to Anon Anon. Looking forward to hearing how this goes and happy to hear you’ll have some company. 🙂 This may be the only way to catch the eye of Joe Oliver. He or his office don’t reply to e-mails, not mine anyway.
@AnonAnon Good luck today!! I can’t wait to hear your report on how it went.
This is how today’s event went before Joe Oliver’s speech at the Royal York Hotel:
Unfortunately, only one friend, B., was able to join me. More would have been good, but two were better than one. We waited inside the hotel, right outside the event room, with the gathering crowd, most of whom were Bay Street types in dark suits. We were more casually dressed but weren’t noticed right away.
When people started to enter the event room, we stood as if we were staff handing out something official for the event. Many people took our flyers, often saying “thanks” and without looking at them right away. A few older men scanned the flyer and rejected it angrily. We were able to hand out flyers for about ten minutes before the event staff noticed us and called hotel security. Someone grabbed the remaining stock of B.’s flyers from her hands. Another person tried to do the same with mine, but I resisted, saying “those belong to me.” I was able to keep my remaining flyers.
When the security people arrived, they, of course, declared that we were trespassing on a private function on private property. A calm discussion ensued in which I questioned how the hotel could be strictly private property, and it was explained to me that it is “private property with public access” and that if we had no other business in the hotel we were trespassing. Once the three security people realized that we two elderly-looking people were no physical threat, two of them left, and the young head guy continued asking us to leave. We got him to read the flyer and he became more sympathetic. He said, “I see where you’re coming from, and I might even agree with you, but I still have to ask you to leave. It’s my job.”
B. and I agreed to leave the hotel. Then, with our remaining stock of flyers we went to the sidewalk on Front Street outside the main entrance to the hotel. It was only at that point that I unrolled one of the signs I had made and held it for people to see. We got rid of almost all of our remaining flyers there before the same young security guy showed up and told us that the sidewalk in front of the hotel was not a public sidewalk but belonged to the hotel. We expressed incredulity over that, but by then our mission was finished anyway; so we left.
Overall, I think we accomplished about as much as we could have expected. I think we were able to distribute 60-65 of the 100 flyers that I had printed. We didn’t see any sign of the Finance Minister himself before we had to leave.
It turned out that the flyers were a more effective communication vehicle than the signs would have been inside the hotel, because the signs would have attracted unwanted attention to us sooner. Even on the street at the end, I noticed that people were more willing to take the flyer than look at the sign.
I found the reaction of the hotel security guy very interesting. He basically expressed support and said he hoped we could continue carrying on our activities elsewhere, though it was his job to get us out of the hotel. Having a son, myself, who has worked as a security guard, I can imagine that the hotel guy isn’t paid a lot and is unhappy having to serve as security for an event involving all those Bay Street types in expensive suits. Talk about Fat Cats!
Carry on, gang! I hope the idea of amending the implementation act for the IGA will be successful in Parliament.
@AnonAnon
Thank you and B going. You accomplished your mission, very well. Interesting to read that some of those suits were angry..Good. Let them know that there are people who will speak out.
You showed courage and class .
I admire your courage AnonAnon and B. too. Thank you for trying to reach Joe Oliver. Looks like he won’t be going to common folk venues like Flaherty did occasionally — only the elite hangouts for him. Man, he’s going to be a tough nut to get into.
@Em
oliver is a tough nut for sure. He threatens scientists and enviromentalists when he was minister of the Natural Resources