BREAKING NEWS: Murray Rankin’s Assistant just advised they expect the vote on the Omnibus Bill C-31 in the House of Commons Monday, June 9 following Question Period.
She said:
The NDP moved report stage deletions to the budget, including deletions to every section pertaining to FATCA, so those will be voted on, followed bny the vote on the budget itself. It is expected that the Conservatives will vote down all of our amendments to delete.
I will keep you updated. And we will continue to work to advocate for all those caught up in the FATCA net!
Please feel free to share the NDP petition.
Cross-posted from Maple Sandbox
Here’s a list of MP’s with twitter accounts. I know what I’m doing over the weekend.
http://politwitter.ca/page/canadian-politics-twitters/mp/house
anyplace where the debate is covered?
I think it is on http://www.cpac.ca/en/ Something going on about c-31 right now.
@Kermitizi: Do you know if the vote they took a few hours ago was on C31? I watched them vote on a motion put forward by Oliver, but I don’t know if that was C31.
I have not been able to find anything in the media or on Twitter about C31 passing. I think it would be there if it had.
@Blaze and Kermitizi, I watched the vote, too, late this afternoon and it was definitely on Bill C-31. All of the proposed amendments re the FATCA IGA were defeated by the Conservatives though with strong support for the amendments by the opposition. The votes were all around 145-115 to defeat the amendments and pass the bill. There was some mention about a time for 3rd and final reading of the bill, but I think that is essentially a formality because no further amendments can be made at that time. Someone with more knowledge of Parliamentary procedures can correct me if I’m wrong about any of this.
Actually the Commons session for today is still under way at 10pm and is now considering Bill C-24, the “Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act”. Elizabeth May and other opposition MPs are still giving the Conservatives a hard time over whether their legislation is constitutional. You can watch it on
http://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/Parlvu/TimeBandit/PowerBrowserLive_SilverLight.aspx?ContentEntityId=11955&EssenceFormatID=427&date=20140609&lang=en
@AnonAnon: That was what I thought happened too. I only tuned in as an mendment was being defeated, then I saw Oliver out forward a motion.
Here is some information on first, second and third reading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_%28legislature%29
So, it looks like it still needs third reading and one more vote to be final, but as you said, there can be no amendments.
i heard something about third reading, but I didn’t know exactly what was said or what it meant.
AnonAnon Yes, I’ve been watching all the debate on the citizenship bill. That is also scary for what it means.
I do not know much about how parliament works, but I think they said it will go to a third reading, which I think means another couple days for the final vote. Do they read all 400 pages in front of everybody, just like people standing in order to vote (why do they not have buttons to vote! One vote takes like 20 minutes of people standing or not standing. Also sometimes there is a voice vote which means people with stronger voice cords win). And tonight the debate on c-24 the non-con parties have the same attitudes against the current government as do 90% of Canadians. If you watch the house of commons, be sure to have other activities and just keep cpac feed in the background, perhaps on your Ipad or Kindle. Its them forever to get anywhere.
To me.. 3rd reading is just going through the motions to make it look like it was all done nice & neat… They will pass this…. I hope all who voted for this will be voted out…. serve the canadians… not the Americans… once that foot is in the door… what next… oh… btw… since we got all this info… please CRA process & proceed to take the money out since u are legally part of the IRS & Treasury….
Dual citizens in Canada of whatever nationality = second-class citizens.
This is all so incredibly stressful.
Wren, I would like to make a picture of parliament where all CONS faces are pasted over by Harper’s face. Do not worry the fate has been sealed. Life is a certainty. You should waste some time watching the parliament do things worse then the US house.
Those canadians who are not affected don’t care. Sadly.
Go to these links Badger just found:
Does this mean that IT PASSED in House of Commons yesterday in vote #187?
http://openparliament.ca/bills/41-2/C-31/
http://openparliament.ca/votes/41-2/187/
Looks like my Tory MP (Trottier) voted against Canada.
Just spoke to a Canada Opposition party staffer:
The Third (final) reading of the Bill C-31 in the House of Commons has not yet happened.
She predicts that the “debate” on the bill (five hours or so?) could begin tonight, more likely tomorrow, with vote perhaps by Thursday — maybe Monday at latest.
Then bill goes to Senate where it might sit for two weeks or so, and then to GG.
Also reporting on Bill C-24 / Q Essay (CBC Jian Ghomeshi: Bill C-24 set to change who gets to be Canadian, http://www.cbc.ca/q/blog/2014/06/09/q-essay-who-is-a-canadian/.
Would Jian Ghomeshi be interested in discussing the “dual citizens” that are from the US — and what is buried in Bill C-31?
http://openparliament.ca/debates/2014/6/9/charlie-angus-1/
Calgary 411,
It’s interesting that the only comment on the Ghomeshi piece is from a Canadian who opposes dual citizenship.
People dispute me but I have yet to tell someone I am giving up my USC upon becoming Canadian who hasn’t been supportive. Canadians, in my limited experience, aren’t keen on duality.
Ghomeshi, like many, don’t take a pragmatic view of naturalizing. It’s always a spiritual tinged with nationalism thing. The practical difficulties of the journey to PR and then citizenship and even after are discounted because we elevate citizenship to a quasi-religion and infuse it with a single-minded purpose shared by all as opposed to a single factor – on a long list of details – that binds a diverse set of individuals.
The govt is being uber-pragmatic about who should be admitted to Club Canada and erring on the side of progress and economy (neither of which are really influenced much by govt policy or the population as much as they are by money and the marketplace), but Ghomeshi is correct that we should have had a discussion and hashed things out (though I think we’d have a more racist set of criteria if we did).
I think you’re correct about discussion leading to racist overtones — some even blatant.
A discussion on the “value” or “pro’s and con’s” of a dual citizenship of any kind, though, might be a good discussion. I is apparent that many have not looked at the con’s of maintaining dual citizenship. It may work for some more mobile persons and families, not so much for others.
I would swear this is the Canadian House of Commons:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-republicans-gagging-hypocrisy/2014/06/09/c279db60-f016-11e3-914c-1fbd0614e2d4_story.html?hpid=z2
This is a comment which might offend some, but the fact of the matter is, laws about age for sexual consent still vary worldwide (and even between US states if I remember correctly).
I am starting not to understand Canada. They grant asylum to an American woman who was convicted
for statutory rape in the US for facts that apparently would not be considered a crime in Canada (a consenting 16 year old boy over whom the convicted woman had no authority, if I read the article correctly). Ok, fine, In Switzerland one would not be convicted for such acts committed in Switzerland or further punished in Switzerland for a similar crime abroad because the age of consent is 16 and the penal code excludes punishment for acts committed abroad that are not illegal in Switzerland .
But this woman was convicted for a crime committed in the US. So why doesn’t Canada (or Switzerland) grant effective asylum (protection from the US) to its own citizens and/or legal bone fide residents who happen to be USPs and are “committing” an offense accused by the US on Canadian soil (failure to pay extra income tax to the US or file stupid privacy/charter-violating forms) where such is not a crime under Canadian laws (yet)??
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/florida-sex-offender-granted-asylum-in-canada-1.2646061
How does this woman get off, and gets protected by Canada and people like us just trying to work hard, save and invest for retirement etc get screwed by the system??
Why isn’t the US making big headlines saying something like “Canada protects child molesters”??? I just found this article by accident. But the US are after our honest hard working butts and screwing us because we don’t want to pay their extra taxes and just want to be left alone in the country where we live and have citizenship? There are more headlines about FATCA and tax evasion than about this story that should offend even more people.
Granted, I have to make a disclaimer that I don’t know the whole case about the woman in question and I do not want to make any judgement upon her or her situation here in this forum. Perhaps there are accusations of abuses in procedure or what not… but the irony of the situation made it so that I could not resist a mini-rant on the paradox….
IMHO It seems that governments care more about raping the fruits of our labor than preserving other rights.
Was this decision on the asylum debated in Parliament?? Does anybody know or care???
If the Canadian government had to choose between protecting rapists and the banks, they’d choose the banks.
@Bubblebustin, lucky for the rapists the Canadian government has never had to make that choice : )
“How does this woman get off, and gets protected by Canada and people like us just trying to work hard, save and invest for retirement etc get screwed by the system??”
Where is the evidence that you’ve gotten screwed by the Canadian system? Don’t allow anyone in Canada to refer to you as anything other than a Canadian citizen. Not a dual, not a US citizen, not a US “person”–etc. Is there any evidence that such a strategy won’t work?
Yes, you’ve been screwed badly by the U.S. system–as has this lady from Florida who is no child molester but simply an ordinary woman involved in an ordinary human relationship. But I’m not sure yet whether there is a Canadian violation of human rights.
Have any Canadian bank accounts been closed yet? Not talking here about Swiss or Mexican–Canadian bank accounts?