THE TRANSCRIPT IS UP!
UPDATED LINKS TO THE VIDEO:
ParlVU site: The original ParlVU video
Isaac Brock Society YouTube channel: The entire meeting, featuring John Richardson’s presentation and interaction with the committee.
[ UPDATE of interest, but possibly not related, for May 14, 2014: Joe Oliver will be before the House tonight according to the CBC — FATCA IGA not indicated as a topic. ]
HOUSE OF COMMONS
2nd Session, 41st Parliament
NOTICE OF MEETING
Standing Committee on Finance
Meeting No. 35
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Room C-110, 1 Wellington Street
(613-947-7776)
Orders of the Day
Televised
Bill C-31, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 11, 2014 and other measures
Witnesses
3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
As an individual
John Richardson
Canadian Bankers Association
Darren Hannah, Acting Vice-President
Policy and Operations
Canadian Council of Chief Executives
Brian Kingston, Senior Associate
Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Chantal Bernier, Interim Privacy Commissioner
5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
As an individual
Sean Bruyea, Retired Captain, Columnist, Media Personality and Academic Researcher
Canadian Bar Association
Cyndee Todgham Cherniak, Chair
Commodity Tax, Customs and Trade Section
Canadian Consumer Specialty Products Association
Shannon Coombs, President
Chemistry Industry Association of Canada
Gordon Lloyd, Vice-President
Technical Affairs
Videoconference – Vancouver, British Columbia
As an individual
Dominique Gross, Professor
School of Public Policy, Simon Fraser University
I hope they keep the order for today’s meeting as it is in the schedule so I can listen to John Richardson first. Tune in everyone, if you can. One hour to go … tick … tick … tick
Does anyone have a link to the session about to start?
@ WhiteKat
Try this:
http://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/Parlvu/TimeBandit/PowerBrowserLive_SilverLight.aspx?ContentEntityId=11809&EssenceFormatID=830&date=20140514&lang=en
John Richardson is in tip-top form — FANTASTIC!
Gotta love John Richardson and Murray Rankin!!!
@ Blaze
You worry about messy hair (it was not) and now I’m worrying about pulling mine out listening to Hannah and his twin Kingston. And Bernier — blah!
@Em
Absolutely. If they ask Hannah one more thing I will SCREAMMMMMMMMMMM
Is it over now?
I heard Andrew Saxton ask Brian Kingston a 2 part question of which the second part was:
Are there any special provisions that Canada received that other coiubtrues do not have?
I did not hear any answer to this, did anyone else?
As far as I know, UK and others also got their govt-reg, tax-deferred savings accounts “exempted” from bank reporting. I get sick and tired of hearing MPs act like they procurred something special for us.
Well, they are on a break now. Richardson was excellent, especially with the inane and insulting questions put by Keddy and other Conservative mps, who clearly understand nothing.
John made the point about the illegality of the Treasury negotiating IGAs with any country, something I think blew right over their heads.
Hannah is simply an ASS.
@Blaze: Wonderful job yesterday. Superior in every way. John referenced you today in making points regarding the impact of 1 million Canadians.
As an aside, I simply cannot believe these people are as obtuse as they seem to be about the impact on Citizens and Residents in Canada.
Base line: WE don’t care, we are going to report and that is that. WE are off the hook and CRA can deal with it.
Once comment about Bernier: She IS making the point that it is necessary to have probable cause ( warrant issue) to release information and indicates their concern with FINTRAC who release information at will and without knowledge. She clearly makes the point that it IS a violation of privacy rights and charter rights UNLESS that probable cause has been established via justice.( taking the case before a judge to justify a warrant)
@ WhiteKat
There’s another panel coming up but they aren’t discussing FATCA as far as I can tell.
One thing that never came up was account opening procedures, and how those will change starting July 1st.
@FuriousAC, Bernier’s point about requiring probable cause (warrents) referred to a separate provision of the bill — enabling the CRA to report evidence of suspected crimes to the police — not to FATCA. As far as I could tell, she saw few privacy concerns over the FATCA IGA. (Not that I agree with her!)
@ FuriousAC
Please, I respectfully disagree — Hannah is an “arrogant” ass. (Besides I like alliteration.) I’m not expecting OPC to be of much help … appears it really isn’t their mandate as Bernier has stated.
It is clear from today’s hearing that the Canadian Conservative politicians are bought and paid for by the banking industry. They don’t even pretend to care the slightest about the horrible position they are putting 1 million Canadians in. The same Canadians whose taxes pay for these politicians’ salaries. They have no concept of the word sovereignty.
The Conservatives acted like they were visiting salesmen from the IRS. If there was no wording under their names showing they were Conservatives I would think they are sent here from the US government to do a huge sales pitch.
The Conservatives deserve to be thrown out of power over this. Imagine being cheerleaders to having your country’s Treasury raided by a foreign government. That’s what the Conservatives did during this hearing, they cheered to have a foreign government tax Canadian citizens. SHAME is not a fitting enough word for what they did.
@WhiteKat, I was struck by that omission, too. What was said did suggest that banks will ask applicants for new accounts if they are US persons for tax purposes. Exactly how they will phrase the question, and what evidence they will require or accept to document the answer, are unclear. I can’t wait to open a new account at a new bank after July 1, just to see what they ask.
Hannah’s arrogance makes me want to never deal with a bank again.
Whoever it was that said he’d looked at IBS, and wondered if we we Loyalists, or something, needs some education. Keddy really pissed me off. Will have to wait for the download to go back and make notes of his comments.
@WhiteKat,
Yes it did come up but Hannah deftly shifted the focus on to the indicia which really only applies to existing accounts. He literally said that if a bank person, while doing due diligence found evidence of indicia, he/she was to contact the customer to ask them and if they said no, the information would be deleted. And that everyone would be made aware if their information would be passed on to the CRA. Mr. Cullen pressed him many times to get an answer to the question of whether a customer would be notified if their information was passed on to the CRA. He must have asked him directly 3 times including “Yes”: or “No” which Hannah would not answer.
I’m not saying this very well but Hannah was at this point, referring to an pre-existing account indicating indicia. I have never heard anything like this before, that outside of opening an account, there would be contact with a “US Person” customer as the data mining coughed up pre-existing accounts. Mr. Cullen was aware, as are we, that the banks are not under any requirement to notify pre-existing customers with US indicia, that their info is being passed on to CRA. Hannah would start up again about “he would have to go back and engage…” Total crap. He would not answer the question. Cullen even told him, I’m the one who gets to dodge questions, I’m the politician, Yes or No.” Hannah would not answer.
@TheMom,
I believe it was Kesteren who started on about IBS.
@WhiteKat and AnonAnon
In my notes, I have that Murray Rankin asked Hannah if new account applicants would be asked to self-certify, what mechanisms are included in the IGA regarding that? Hannah said if there were nothing obvious to indicate they were and the answer was “I’m not”, that there would be nothing more to ask.
@ The Mom
Mea culpa. I’m a descendant of Loyalists — United Empire Loyalists.
The message the Conservatives sent out today is that Canada is for sale. You can negotiate the price and the toughest negotiator wins. It is not a sovereign nation. The country is just a pretext for the banking industry to exist. Outside of banking, Canada has no reason for existing.
To all the Conservative politicians on the panel: we heard your message loud and clear. These Conservative politicians are NOT CANADIANS. They are just pretending to be Canadians. They showed no sense of pride in what it is to be a Canadian. Not a single Conservative politician tried to defend the Canadian tax base and the negative consequences of FATCA to that tax base.
@ Tricia
Hannah and Kingston were both smearing so much lipstick on the pig it now looks like a hooker.
Is it fair to say things were testier today than they were yesterday?”
They are intentionally being obtuse. “There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
My small hope that a couple of to Cons yesterday were beginning to see and look at this from another angle was completely dashed today. Someone or something has gotten to them.
Keddy spouted his usual nonsense about “American citizens.”
The Privacy Commissioner could have been stronger, but it was good she raised the necessity issue and urged them to have CRA explain how FATCA meets necessity requirements.
Brock got a shout out from one of the Cons as a group of loyalists. I would have loved to have seen where that was going, but they dropped it when John pointed out Brock is not his website. John pointed out Brock is not his website, citizenshipsolutions is.
I will try to watch it again when it is available later.
@Em: Why would you insult hookers like that?