[We now have a NEW POST taking us up to February 1, 2015. This post will be retired from service.]
THE AUTUMN 2014 UPDATE
Dear Donors,
Together, we reached our goal of $100,000 to pay the November 1 legal bill 11 days ahead of schedule!
Thank you Canadian donors from coast to coast and our friends from around the world for your generosity, support and determination — and especially for not being afraid.
The name of our non-profit corporation is the “Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty.”
We were very deliberate in including in our name the word “sovereignty”, which forms a cornerstone of our Claims against the Government of Canada.
Canada and dozens of other countries throughout the world gave into a bully because their “leaders” were afraid of harm caused by a trading “partner” — and they gave their sovereignties away.
Help us convince by example the Leaders and Governments of all countries worldwide that they should return their sovereignties back to their Peoples.
Please continue to support our lawsuit.
“Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.” (Helen Keller)
— Plaintiffs Ginny and Gwen, and the ADCS-ADSC team
Chers donateurs,
Ensemble, nous avons atteint notre but d’amasser 100 000 $ pour payer notre facture légale du 1er novembre 11 jours d’avance !
Un gros merci à vous, donateurs canadiens, et à nos amis de tous les coins du monde pour votre grande générosité, soutien et détermination. Et surtout pour votre courage.
Le nom de notre organisme sans but lucratif est « l’Alliance pour la défense de la souveraineté canadienne ».
Nous avons choisi délibérément le mot « souveraineté » puisqu’il constitue la base fondamentale de nos revendications envers le gouvernement du Canada.
Le Canada et des dizaines d’autres pays se sont pliés devant l’intimidation des États-Unis parce que leurs « leaders » ont eu peur des menaces de notre « partenaire » commercial. Ils ont donc vendu leur souveraineté à rabais.
Aidez-nous à convaincre les dirigeants et les gouvernements de tous ces pays qu’ils se doivent de remettre leur souveraineté à leurs peuples.
S’il vous plaît, continuez à soutenir notre cause.
« Seuls, nous pouvons faire si peu. Ensemble, nous pouvons faire beaucoup. » (Helen Keller)
— Ginny, Gwen et toute l’équipe de l’ADCS-ADSC
DONATE to www.adcs-adsc.ca (ADSC en français).
@Annefrank
I don’t want to “catastrophize” either – but what happens if Canada cant buy OIL?
@nervousinvestor
I don’t believe that is correct.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms
And see: http://www.jhcentre.org/understanding-human-rights/canadian-charter-rights-and-freedoms
tdott,
That just can’t be right. A private company could have a policy that they don’t hire people who are Hindu? A fast food restaurant could refuse to serve black people? Banks may be private companies but their services are essential to the vast majority of the population to function in society.
I’m sure Mr. Arvay would not have launched the lawsuit if he believed what you quoted from Wikipedia etc. The Charter would have diminished value if it was restricted in such a way. Surely it has broader application to society as a whole.
Polly, Canadian pipelines heading east.
@ Mr. A,
The Charter is only binding on government. But other federal and provincial legislation apply to businesses. Eg, the company that wouldn’t hire Hindus, if in Ontario, would be contrary to Ontario Human Rights Code, s. 5.
S.32, Charter:
“32. (1) This Charter applies
(a) to the Parliament and government of Canada in respect of all matters within the authority of Parliament including all matters relating to the Yukon Territory and Northwest Territories; and
(b) to the legislature and government of each province in respect of all matters within the authority of the legislature of each province.”
@tdott
I always thought that the Charter basically applies to the government in that it must respect the rights and freedoms of the citizens of Canada.
The banks are under the jurisdiction of PIPEDA.
Here is the information on PIPEDA:
“The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) sets out ground rules for how private sector organizations may collect, use or disclose personal information in the course of commercial activities. …..”
PIPEDA
@Calgary
What does that mean? East? Doesn’t oil have to be paid for in dollars?
Hmmm.
So let’s suppose the lawsuit succeeds. The IGA is scrapped. Canada falls back to a Model 2 IGA in which the banks deal directly with the IRS.
What’s to stop the government from amending PIPEDA to allow the banks to comply with both the Model 2 IGA and PIPEDA? Since the Charter apparently doesn’t apply to the banks themselves, the Charter becomes irrelevant.
This was posted on Twitter. I don’t believe it is possible to leave comments on Moody’s site.
I don’t know couldn’t Canadian oil be paid for by Canadian dollars? Why couldn’t Canada do its own thing regarding its energy. Does it have to remain static? This is from someone who has no idea.
@Polly,
Canada’s a major oil producing country, #6 in the world. The oil is in the West (Alberta), that’s why she was writing about sending it East.
@Pacifica
Ah so. Does that mean you have enough oil to cover Canada`s needs?
@ Tricia Moon
It boils down to who do you trust … constitutional expert Peter Hogg, brilliant academic Allison Christians, astute lawyer Joseph Arvay, etc. … or a law firm profiting from its FATCA’d clients. The hardest thing always for me is to wait and see but wait and see I must. Meanwhile I’ll keep donating to ADCS because it’s the right thing for me to do — win or lose. One thing for sure is that if nobody pushes back, the USA will be emboldened to push everyone down even harder. So for me it’s “Push On!” “Surgite”, even though I’ll have to wait a long time to see what the Supreme Court’s decision will be and then wait some more to see what the aftermath will be.
Not to get into the politics of Canada’s energy needs and supply, here is one fairly recent projection for Canada: http://www.neb-one.gc.ca/clf-nsi/rnrgynfmtn/nrgyrprt/nrgyftr/2013/nrgftr2013-eng.html.
Sorry, Polly, I thought you were Canadian. If not, my comment must have really seemed wacky.
Thank you Pacifica, that does appear to support tdott’s information, although section 32b is worded in quite a broad general sense and also seems to transfer Charter rights to the authority of each province.
My understanding is that laws like PIPEDA were superseded by the IGA, even though there seems to be reasonable grounds to contest this as fundamentally unjust. Mr. Arvay does address the banks being under provincial regulation on page 13, no. 66. To my eye he states the violations of sections 7, 8 & 15 in the proper broad sense that I would expect and does not appear to make the government vs private distinction.
@EmBee
Given Mr. Berg has “answered” some things he chose not to answer over at FP, I would like to see us have a chance to refute what he has said on his site. However, no comments, as far as I can see, can be posted there. Perhaps he will read what AnneFrank has written.She addresses his issue of post-ADCS suit better than I ever could. I cannot understand if he intends to undermine what we are trying to do or just what…………I once thought he was on our side. In fact, I actually don’t understand several exchanges I have had recently with cross-border tax lawyers/CPA’s. All say it’s bad and so on, but inevitable. They would still have business no matter what. Remember when CBA also was vehemently against all this? Oh well……………
@tdott
Probably nothing except we hope to oust the CONS by then, do we not?
I like Anne Frank’s scenarios better. LOL
I would like to see an article in the press along the lines of what @Anne Frank says. A few articles in the press have been focused on the negative consequences of a successful lawsuit. As Anne suggests armageddon would not likely occur.
Mr Wood of Forbes has suggested FATCA is here to stay, in one form or another. He said this now twice. We could talk about the Canadian and U.S. lawsuits yet it would be good if we may say more.
Practical (non-FATCA) related illustration of what Anne Frank was talking about with swaps: Argentina figuring out ways to get around a US court ruling about debt seniority which is blocking its repayments to newer bondholders, by making sure its payments never touch the US:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-19/argentina-to-pay-bondholders-in-local-account-to-skirt-ruling.html
Predictably, US courts are responding with dire extraterritorial threats:
Almost all rights that are granted under the various constitutions, charters and conventions of the world are subject to limitations. Think about it, the right to self determination, which is the first right promulgated in most UN treaties and declarations, is suspended in the case of prison inmates. Rights against gender discrimination do not entitle men to demand maternity leave. Even the right to life is suspended in certain situations in countries that permit the death penalty.
The courts and legislative bodies in most countries have developed hierarchies of rights, placing greater importance on some over others. The UN in the Convention on Civil and Political Rights has stated that the rights enumerated therein may be derogated in times of emergency, as long as they “do not involve discrimination solely on the ground of race, colour, sex, language, religion or social origin”. In the US, the closest to an absolute right that has been elevated by the Supreme Court is the right to non-discrimination on the basis of race or colour. Second on the list is discrimination based on citizenship; which is rather ironic considering that FATCA requires other countries to engage in such discrimination. I think that might be fertile grounds to pursue a case in the USA.
Unfortunately, the right to privacy of information is fairly low down in the hierarchy, and there are countless examples of where it is compromised. Governments can access private information from all sorts of people via subpoenas or from third parties in the pursuit of justice, tax collection and many others. The nature of the information itself has hierarchical protections, so personal information such as medical information or data describing your ethnic or social origin (including birthplace) has higher protection than, say, your bank details.
These rights are limited based on the legitimate need of the situation, and I can tell you that the right of a state to raise tax revenue trumps the privacy rights of your financial information in every case. There’s little precedent to violate your right to information privacy by handing it over to a foreign power (unless it’s part of a tax investigation and subject to a treaty), but I’ll guess that those defending this case will frame it in terms of the benefit to Canada of raising revenue through the reciprocal provisions in the IGA agreement.
There’s also a concept of right to privacy versus public interest. In this situation it’s hard to argue that the right to privacy is greater than Canada’s need to remain viable within the global financial system.
I don’t mean to crash the party here with negative concepts, but these are likely the kind of issues that the plaintiffs will be facing when this matter comes before a judge. As Brockers we need to be cognizant of these issues so that we can apply our collective minds and resources to addressing them .
Domino,
You bring some interesting points. However, I think the wholesale search and seizure of banking records based on citizenship, national origin, suspected or real PR status, possible overstay in the US, or other ‘indicia’ etc. without a warrant or probable cause or any evidence of wrongdoing is something else entirely.
Also, to be able to do such without notifying the account holders and not be accountable for errors unintended or otherwise strikes me as another big violation.
You are correct, however…people need to be aware of the types of arguments the defense will try to cook up.
1. First they ignore you,
2. then they laugh at you,
3. then they fight you,
4. then you win.
Mahatma Gandhi
I think we are now already at #3 with the shrill articles predicting Armageddon for Canada if our lawsuit prevails.
@isaac……….I think we might be at 3.7.
They have resorted to “If you win it will be worse for you.”
3.8 is “If you win, the Niagra River will turn red, locusts will descend on the plains and frogs will fall from the sky.”
@Brockers…again on the topic of “What would victory look like?”
Canadian Courts already have set precedent that when a business has operations in a foreign land that entails risk. Canadian Banks doing business in the USA do so at their peril. That matter is settled.
I am going to assume that the Court will determine that a Canadian Citizen in Canada can only be one thing under Canadian law and that is Canadian. While it may be permissible to ask a question “What is your Citizenship?____________(insert one)” If someone answers they are in Canada as a Canadian Citizen, there is no further action.
The FATCA IGA was “clever by half” because it requires a search for place of birth indica but not “Parents place of birth.” A US Person/Citizen is EQUALLY under US Law a US Citizen regardless if they were themselves born in Cleveland, or their parents were born in Cleveland while they were born in Calgary.
You either search for ALL possible indica or you search for no indica whatsoever. Thats the clever by half and I would suspect some people at the US Treasury knew that but backed off because that would have shown how absurd this all was.
That is discrimination in clear view!!!
In retrospect, we should have lobbied the NDP to have attempted a requirement to look for parents place of birth. That would have added more weight on the structure to bring it down.
The FATCA IGA should hold based on address indica in the USA.
The FATCA IGA might hold for those resident in Canada who are US Citizens and landed immigrants. Maybe not, but Canadian Citizens are simply easier to get out of the mess.
So there will remain a FATCA IGA though partly gutted.
What does the USA then do?
I think the US Treasury could come out and state they have “won on the important parts” and the FATCA IGA “remains largely intact targeting the intended audience.”
They might then unilaterally amend the worldwide IGA agreements to include the Canada Court decision.
It is absurd to think the US will target Canada with 30% sanctions, absurd.
To be blunt, if the USA attempted to withold 30% of any countries FIs a trade war would break out.