It worked when we all went crazy sending emails and letters to our MPs and other political representatives. The NDP, some of the Liberals, and the Green Party, not only heard our messages, but acted on them (Murray Rankin, Nathan Cullen, Charlie Angus, Ted Hsu, Scott Brison, and Elizabeth May to mention a few).
The Conservatives, although consistently toeing the party line, probably have many members who ‘get it’, only because WE kept the pressure up. Yet, regardless of all the noise we have made, the FATCA enabling legislation is being rammed through parliament, and though we may be unable to stop that, we have been successful because THEY HEARD US. There are no excuses now, for the Conservative government or the banksters. We have all their weak arguments documented in parliament and senate sessions, letters, emails, and articles. They can never claim ignorance now.
One of the things that has always been one of our biggest challenges is to educate average Canadians about the impact of FATCA on directly affected Canadians, deemed ‘US persons’, as well as on ALL Canadians. FATCA is complicated; banks and government hide the truth, and although there has been some excellent media coverage, it has been sporadic and overshadowed with an abundance of the ‘FATCA is about rich US tax cheats’ meme.
We can’t give up on getting the message out there. Canada Day, and FATCA D-DAY are fast approaching. Perhaps this is a perfect time to have a “Letter to the Editor Blitz” playing on the emotions surrounding the national pride and celebrations of this time of the year. Don’t worry about crafting the perfect letter. The point is to inundate newspapers with your personal letters about the little known US law that is about to change Canada forever. I encourage everyone to write to their local major and small newspapers now before Canada Day celebrations start. One ‘crazy’ lady, writing to a couple newspapers, will likely go unheard, but if we all do it, they will not ignore us!
@WhiteKat
I will get my paws pounding on the keyboard and hit the Toronto papers. Maybe I’ll try some of the US ones also….just to let them know how they have spoiled our special day in Canada.
Great idea WhiteKat! Important to include either the mention of, or the link to the ADCS in our letters!
@bubblebustin, actually, you gave me the idea when you said you were sending your old Squamish letter to the PG citizen editor. Yes, mentioning ADCS in the letters would be good.
I’m ready, willing and able. Thanks, WhiteKat and bubblebustin!!!
I hope your letters are published, in both the print edition and the on-line version of the newspaper. As we all know, many, probably most, letters that are submitted are not published. It’s up to the editor, or the owner of the newspaper chain. If enough people send letters to the same paper, one of them might get published, so good luck!
A letter in the newspaper would identify us to the bank as possible “US persons” even without describing our personal situations, and we haven’t received our CLNs yet.
@Queenston,Bubblebustin had her letter published at the Squamish Chief newspaper awhile back in rebuttal to her MP John Weston, so its not that much of a long shot to try and get one published. If bubble can do it anyone can…just kidding Bubblebustin – your letter was excellent!
Regarding fear of disclosing your name, of course Bubblebustin is ‘out of the closet’ now, so to speak, so using her real name was not an issue. Personally, as someone still non-compliant, with no CLN forthcoming, I plan to use either an alias or my first name with only the first initial of my last name. I have seen letters from anonymous people printed in newspapers before, so please don’t be dissuaded. It should be obvious why we don’t want to publish our full names, so I would think that any editors considering our letters would understand this and perhaps make exceptions even if they normally have a policy of not accepting anonymous letters. In a letter I just sent to PG citizen, I did include my address and phone number (which they don’t publish), in case they want to talk to me about why I have not posted my full name.
It would be good if people sent letters to multiple newspapers, not just their local ones. We want to hit them up with as many as we can.
Lol, WhiteKat, I almost lost my coffee there!
If I could suggest starting with the local papers in you riding and mention your MP’s stand on FATCA, or if they haven’t made one, their party’s.
Whitekat and ALL,
Great idea!
Send letters to ALL newspapers etc. large, small, community-based — online and print. If you send to the print version you will likely need to disclose name and address. We have been told by professionals that it is best if possible to have a personal human interest story (not just a one sentence complaint—provide some details) in the letters, which should be short and to the point (no ranting EVER — we don’t want to turn off a single reader).
Shorter letters have higher likelihood of being published in print.
I know that this will be difficult or impossible for most, but we need letters with personal stories sent from people willing to disclose their names. These have a higher likelihood of being published.
You do not need to be a present or former US person to send a letter. You might be a non-US spouse married to a US person and you are angry about the loss of privacy when your joint account is turned over to the IRS. You might be a non-U.S. daughter whose mother is a US person and you are upset over how FATCA is affecting your family.
Please, we really need some brave souls willing to disclose their names publicly in letters. You all know already that real names make a difference.
As Bubblebustin says, PLEASE MENTION THE http://WWW.ADCS-ADSC website and what you are trying to achieve by your donation for all Canadians.
A thought: Assuming that Parliament passes the IGA legislation on Monday, you might want to hold off until that evening to send your letters. The text of the letters will be different after legislation is passed and letters might pack a bigger punch.
@Stephen, I agree, using real names is ideal. However, even if you are positive, that you cannot do this, please don’t let that stop you from submitting a letter. The editor might not pick YOURS, but he will notice the sheer volume of letters on the same topic, and pick one to publish – although perhaps favouring one with full name submitted.
Check with the publication on line under letters to the editor. Most have a limit of the number of words they will consider.
Globe and Mail limits to 150 words. Toronto Star looks for 50-150 words.
Many publications will not consider a letter without your real name and city. They usually require your full name, address and telephone number to consider the letter, but only your name and city will be published. You can ask that your last name not be published or that your name be withheld, but that is rare.
Are there any brave souls out there willing to go public? To help raise more money, I’m planning to send some articles to various news media.
We want to make this a human interest story, so we need a real life human story. I would like to use full real names if possible.
Getting them published will be a long shot. Getting them published without real names will make it a longer shot.
Although my story has been told many times in abbreviated form and not likely the best to use, my name is out there so I’m OK with another go IF I know what will be published and it does not include the name of my son. Mistakes have been made in the details of my son’s story — not completely serious for the jist of the story but can be serious for me and my son.
@Blaze, most likely you will only get full names of volunteers who are ‘out’ with their financial institution.
It is one thing to reveal your name to your MP or other politicians, or to submit letters to the senate committee under your name, but quite another to have your full name published in a newspaper which could be read by the ‘nice lady at the bank’ who then decides to call you up and see if you are the same “Bob Jones” she read about who is worried about FATCA. I’m not trying to dissuade anyone, just saying that if you want to stay under cover with your bank, getting your name published as a potential victim of FATCA in a newspaper article is not the way to go about doing that.
@Blaze and all, re: word limit. It appears to vary a fair bit. I sent one this morning to PG citizen in response to Mr. Ryan’s letter, which has a 400 word limit. I think I recall that Squamish Chief, where Bubblebustin’s letter got published has around a 500 word limit (I submitted a response to a banksters response to Bubblebustin which did not get published). Maybe the smaller newspapers typically have larger word limits than the bigger ones like TO Star.
If nothing else, by writing a letter(s) to the editor (even if it’s anonymous) you will FEEL better afterwards. There is nothing worse than feeling like you have no control over the destiny of your own life, especially when evil forces (Obama, IRS, Conservative government, banksters, etc) are conspiring against you.
I’m so sorry but I’m not brave enough for this. My story is too convoluted and ultimately would probably not evoke any sympathy, even if I could explain it in a few words for a LTTE (tried to do it for myself but couldn’t). I realize that I can’t resolve my own idiotic situation and may have to endure IRS threats in the future. However, my goal is to simply get my husband free and hope nothing dire happens to me.
The community I live in is very small and my FI has a GIIN now (even though it’s a credit union). It’s all set I guess to reveal whatever it discovers. I’m already retreating from friends and neighbours here, lest they have a connection to staff at my FI that I’m unaware of. Things are tenuous for my husband too, until he gets his CLN and all the final paperwork is done. We’d both rather make more contributions to ADCS (my husband’s first donation is coming when he gets around to it) and try to retain some anonymity.
@WHiteKat: Yes it varies in different publications. That is why it is so important to check with each newspaper before submitting.
Stephen and I realize there is a huge risk to putting one’s name out there. That is why I asked for “brave souls.”
All,
If there is a brave soul out there willing to disclose publicly name and story, and accept the real possibility of harm resulting from the disclosure, please contact Lynne Swanson at maplesandboxatyahoodotca
@Stephen and Blaze, Could Lynne’s story be about someone who is already known at his/her bank, and maybe is already compliant (for example someone who has gone through the OVDI fish processing)? Or are you specifically looking for a non-compliant ‘US person’?
Maybe Patricia dambriosio (the elderly lady who went through OVDI and submitted a letter to the US finance committee would be willing. Her name is already out there and she is now compliant.)
Whitekat and Noone,
We all have a vision of the type of person who would be most (and I hate using this word) “newsworthy” and who should attract sympathy from all people who have just a trace of humanity.
My thinking (and others should weigh in on this) is that for an article related to FATCA litigation, the ideal person would be one who could be significantly harmed, most unfairly, when FATCA kicks in.
A type of person I am thinking of would be a U.S. citizen who has spent almost all of his/her life in Canada, has never had any meaningful ties with the U.S. that would in a reasonable sense “warrant” compliance, and is IRS non-compliant.
Perhaps one-third (?, a guess) of US persons in Canada have these characteristics. Yes, such people who disclose publicly for the purpose of a news article would do so with risk of serious harm.
A human interest story always gets noticed, however my thought is that our Canadian Prime Minister is so controlled by the USA that our Canadian Charter of Rights is no longer respected. Canadian’s bank accounts and personal information will now be given over to the IRS by our very own CRA. Canadians have a legal challenge in the works to take this bad action to the Supreme Court. Read all about it on the Issac Brock Society and the Maple Sandbox and http://WWW.ADCS-ADSC .
I am trying to drive readers to our site with a short statement to incite interest. What do you think? Can you help with this and I’ll send it out to our newspapers in the area.
what about sending comments to John Richardson the lawyer who could quote the comments in a letter to the paper as the real life problems of people. as he is lawyer because ? wouldn’t lawyer client privledge apply?
While I do not want to speak for Patricia I would, knowing her and being her friend consider her health which is not good right now. I think this issue has caused her quite a lot of pain and grief and that her family as a whole wishes it would be long gone and over with so unless I am very much mistaken, I don’t think she would like to make herself that visible right now. btw, she’s not really elderly..lol..she isn’t too well though. Stress is something that aggravates her health. I could ask her but, I don’t even want to burden her with that as I am very concerned about her well being. She does read here occassionally so maybe she will pop up if I am way off the mark on this and she decideds to write letters to lots of editors.
One of the good things to come out of this all even if it had to be so difficult for me is my cherished friendship with this fantastic lady.
As for me I’ve told my story till I’m sick of it myself. I wish this was NOT my story and frankly think only U.S. publications would be interested and I’ve stuck my head up so far with those many times already…think I’ll lay low for a while. My spouse though? He might be willing.
@Stephen
“Yes, such people who disclose publicly for the purpose of a news article would do so with risk of serious harm.”
Isn’t that THE story! If someone who is able can write these stories for them because they can not, because the US has made them criminals and Canada will not protect them, made them stateless that IS the violation of basic human rights story. These retirees, disabled children, incidentally US tainted citizens are now hiding in terror, they can not even advocate for themselves, make their experiences public or take legal action. (There must be a horrific word for people subject to live under these conditions, I just can’t think of it).