With the concerns of constituents filling up their inboxes and voicemail, on Monday the NDP repeated their demand that the Conservatives remove a recently-signed tax agreement with the United States from the omnibus budget bill.
Read more: http://www.ipolitics.ca/2014/05/05/get-fatca-out-of-the-budget-bill-ndp-urges/
May 5th: http://openparliament.ca/debates/2014/5/5/peter-van-loan-2/
We are, indeed, more influential than we think! Thank you, Mr. Rankin and Mr. Cullen, for listening to our cries for help and our shouts of righteous anger! Thank you, northernstar for posting the video which has given me a big shot of hope. (I enjoyed meeting you last Friday!) And I enjoyed the Swiss Chalet chicken, too!
I always start my day with Isaac Brock. Today will be a good one!
http://openparliament.ca/debates/2014/5/5/joe-oliver-1/
Additional May 5th:
Canada-U.S. Relations
Oral Questions
2:45 p.m.
NDP
Murray Rankin Victoria, BC
Canada-U.S. Relations
Oral Questions
May 5th, 2014 / 2:45 p.m.
Eglinton—Lawrence
Ontario
Conservative
Joe Oliver Minister of Finance
Canada-U.S. Relations
Oral Questions
2:45 p.m.
NDP
Guy Caron Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Canada-U.S. Relations
Oral Questions
2:50 p.m.
Eglinton—Lawrence
Ontario
Conservative
Joe Oliver Minister of Finance
Taxation
Oral Questions
2:50 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
@Calgary411
Joe Oliver said. “Mr. Speaker, without an agreement in place, our financial institutions would still have to comply with FATCA. This would have required banks to report information directly to the IRS, and deny basic banking services to clients.”
Without the IGA, Canadian laws and human rights codes would have prohibited Canadian Banks from compiling with FATCA. That is very important point. FATCA created a conflict of laws between Canadian law and US law. And the Van deMark vs TD Bank case already established the precedent that Canadian law shall prevail over foreign law.
So the banks could not have acted as Joe Oliver claimed they would, it would have been unlawful.
@Wondering
How do you know when a politician is lying?
@bubblebustin
“How do you know when a politician is lying?”
Choose one…
a. Their lips are moving
b. They are not snoring
Seriously though, I believe the Harperites’ predigested talking points are symptomatic of
poor briefings, lack of insight, ignorance of underlying issues, ignoring constituents, atrophy of independent thought due to disuse, carelessness, apathy, and reckless disregard of duty of care.
@Bubblebustin, “How do you know when a politician is lying?”
If their lips are moving.
Thanks for re-visiting, Wondering, the Van deMark vs TD Bank case already establishing the precedent that Canadian law shall prevail over foreign law which would have had to be followed, thus banks would not have been required to report information directly to the IRS and deny basic banking services to clients.
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/10/07/time-to-protest-fatca-by-protesting-canadian-banks/comment-page-1/#comment-569108 gives previous discussion:
Calgary411 – you are COMPLETELY correct. Miinister Oliver’s suggestion in Parliament that, absent an IGA, Canadian banks would have turned over the data or closed accounts of Canadians is simply wrong. I frankly couldn’t believe he said it. The banks WOULD have had a Catch 22 in that they could not comply with US law in Canada and that might have opened the BANKS up to sanctions IN THE US. The only people with their heads on the block were ALWAYS the Canadian banks. They could not have had the option of breaching Canadian law at home to satisfy the Americans. As I have repeatedly said, the threat to the Canadian banks was and is exaggerated since it is at least equally a threat to the US banks. Neither scorpion lands on the other side of the river if they both start stinging.
@Everyone: Remember, this is a government battling scientists, environmentalists, the present and former auditor general, voters, murdered and missing aboriginal women, native education, Stats Canada, Elections Canada, and judges. More recently they attacked the professional integrity of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, resulting in eleven past Presidents of the Canadian Bar Association writing an article in the Globe and Mail. The only person Harper seems to have any support or empathy for is Rob Ford. Enough said.
I think we should anticipate an assault on us, on our loyalty to Canada and our tax compliance. It began when Kevin Sorenson called us “Americans abiding in Canada.” It continued last week when Gerald Keddy said we aren’t Canadian citizens, we are American citizens living in Canada. He also stressed many of his constituents are “following the rules.” Expect the next ssue to be whether we are following the rules. I am fully prepared for some aggressive questioning when I testify next week.
Ooops. I left veterans off the list of people the Cons are battling with. At least, we are in good company on their enemies list.
@Wondering
You are probably right. So why did they try to hide it?
@ ChearsBigEars
“Do you still have money in transnational banks and if so why?”
No, everything I’ve got is here in Canada in non-transnational banks. This has been the situation for me for over 15 years. Furthermore, I will never invest in nor spend a dime in the USA in the future. My aversion to sending anything south started before my FATCA awareness. I had a family member who became a victim of Bush’s wars.
Turn on ParlVu if you are not already watching. First, Keddy and Oliver insisted FATCA only applies to American citizens, not to Canadian citizens. Rankin pushed Oliver on that and he conceded it does apply to dual citizens.
He says there is not much risk on the constitutional issue (Hmmm. Seems the Cons have said that on a lot of things that the Supreme Court saw very differently.) :
On the issue of removing FATCA from C31 Oliver said: It`s important to move ahead with the agreement to avoid the negative consequences…For us there is not really any reason to delay this now because I don`t have much time.“
Listening to the first part of the Finance Committee with Joe Oliver. The Hansard quotations above in this thread were pretty much repeated by him WORD FOR WORD. In particular, he keeps repeating the rather annoyingly false statement that absent the IGA, banks would be complying with FATCA and turning over information, denying services and withholding tax from “American citizens in Canada”. Utter nonsense. Canadian law would prohibit them from doing so and he – or at least his officials – should certainly have known that. The format did not really permit Cullen or Rankin to cross-examine him on this statement. It is however completely wrong and I am still fuming that this is being repeated.
It IS true that the banks would face a US law at their place of business in the US that would purport to require that of them. However, they are incorporated under the Bank Act (Canada) and they don’t get the right to break Canadian law at the behest of a foreign country.
Also found the Minister’s continual reference to this “doesn’t affect Canadians”. Offensive.
@ Anne Frank
I’m tired of hearing the-devil-made-me-do-it-and-gave-me-a-deadline nonsense. And I’m tired of Oliver’s reliance on his crib sheets. He needs to get up to speed on FATCA. I think feet will be held to the fire eventually but I’m learning that “process” doesn’t always allow that to happen as quickly as I would like it to. Unfortunately I can’t get the meeting to download without installing a microsoft program. I might have to request a transcript.
When I go to parlour, I can’t find committee meetings- only HoC. Help
When I go to parlvu I can’t get to committees.
http://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/PARLVU/TimeBandit/PowerBrowserLive_SilverLight.aspx?ContentEntityId=11725&EssenceFormatID=459&date=20140501&lang=en LIVE
FATCA portion is done. There should, again, be a video up of this Standing Committee meeting sometime after.
Calgary ,when it ‘s available, I’d be grateful if you would point me in the right direction.
I’ll be looking for that, KalC, as I missed part of the FATCA IGA portion. As soon as I see it, I’ll post.
KalC, looks like this is the video: http://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/PARLVU/TimeBandit/PowerBrowser_SilverLight.aspx?ContentEntityId=11725&EssenceFormatID=477&date=20140506&lang=en
If someone posts the URL of the actual video when ParlVu archives it I might be able to watch it using Flip4Mac. (It’s worked before.) I really don’t want to install SilverLight. Thanks!
Found it!
http://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/parlvu/ContentEntityDetailView.aspx?contententityid=11725&date=20140506&lang=en&taid=8&tnid=378
Click on “Play, download or subscribe and download to your hard drive.
Con Mike
KellyAllen (New Brunswick) said the message from US Treasury was clear: “Congress has spoken.“That settles it. No need for a Canadian Parliament. No need for me to testify next week. “Congress has spoken.“
Someone please get me a transcript of this!!!