Any thoughts from the Brock community?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilty_Men
Guilty Men was a British polemical book written under the pseudonym “Cato” and published in July 1940. It attacked 15 public figures for their failed policies towards Germany and for their failure to equip the British armed forces adequately. It is the classic denunciation of appeasement, which it defined as the “deliberate surrender of small nations in the face of Hitler’s blatant bullying.”[1]
The book’s slogan, “Let the guilty men retire,” was an attack on members of the National Government before Winston Churchill became prime minister in April 1940. Most were Conservatives, although some were National Liberals and one was Ramsay MacDonald, the late leader of the Labour Party. Several were current members of Churchill’s government. The book shaped popular thinking about appeasement for 20 years and effectively destroyed the reputation of ex-prime ministers Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain and contributed to the defeat of the Conservative Party in the 1945 general election. According to historian David Dutton, “its impact upon Chamberlain’s reputation, both among the general public and within the academic world, was profound indeed”
Stephen Harper
Jim Flaherty
David Scameron
Angela Merkel
The Harper government’s guilt is much worse. Any of these 15 British leaders might have stopped short of identifying their citizens to a hostile foreign government had that government demanded it. The Harper government has not, in fact they’ve gone as far as to actively conspire with the Americans on how they will enforce US law in Canada, and continue to do so. My MP, John Weston, first said he was “thrilled” about Canada’s IGA, and now says he’s “not happy” about it. Let’s hope that through the actions of two brave ladies he soon lives to regret it.
Flaherty spoke to the tyranny behind FATCA, but in the end chose to appease the Americans. Unlike Gerald Keddy, Flaherty never expressed that the US is within it’s rights to pursue US persons in Canada and that Canada should help them. Where Keddy is stupid, Flaherty knew very well what he was doing was wrong yet did it anyway. Because of this, his legacy will unfortunately be that of a very guilty man.
Re: John Weston. My guess is that he was “thrilled” as the Cons steamrollered the opposition and passed the IGA. Now that he’s finally got around to actually reading that legislation he’s decided he’s “not happy”. Until he moves into “really pissed off” and gets very vocal about it like the rest of us he sounds like a garden variety political opportunist. A nice fat $25000 donation to ADCS along with a public admission of his wrongdoing might restore some of his credibility. Until that happens, he can f-off.
Even if the lawsuit is successful it won’t have a negative on Weston personally. The best way to inflict a little personal pain on him is via the ballot box.
I will vote for whoever has the best chance of defeating him. Efforts to contact his liberal opponent get no where.
Strangely enough, Weston founded the canadian constitution foundation- a right wing group dedicated to fighting for the rights of individuals against the government. The irony!!!!
Federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver and the rest of the Harper Conservatives for cowardly hiding the FATCA IGA in the omnibus budget bill and ducking questions about it.
Thanks for reminding me about that Duke. I’ll be sure to bring it up with him when I meet with him on the 15th. I don’t have a clue why he wants to meet with me knowing that there’s a greater chance that he’ll agree with me than I would with him about what his party’s done to this country.
Try Pam at pgoldsmithjones@gmail.com if you haven’t already.
Douglas Shulman.
I am sure the piece on Churchill was meant to criticize your own government and other who gave in to Obama’s bullying of the rest of the world to help him ruin the U.S.A.’s foreign trade and take away the independence of all the other countries. His goal is clear to most of us. He wants world Socialism and to do away with local governments, giving all central governments the power to give orders to their citizens. Orders coming from Washington D.C. U.S.A.
He has mostly already destroyed small businesses in the U.S. because they cannot be Nationalized. While large businesses can operate from a central office who in turn gets their orders from his party whom he intends to make the ”party of government”.
He is acting as if that form of governing hasn’t already been tried over and over and is a giant failure. can anyone say Soviet Union, Scandinavia, England, Italy, Spain, Germany and every small country surrounding Russia.”Just how many times must it fail and capitalism succeed for the Marxists to understand–MARX WAS WRONG– SOCIALISM FAILED AND –CAPITALISM HAS SUCCEEDED.
To sum up it all up as the Libertarian’s say what they actually want–let capitalism work and leave me to f—- alone.
I would pose another and more important and interesting question as well.
Talk of the failed policy of appeasement in the years leading up to WWII tend to focus on the UK as the “natural leader” that should have stood up to Hitler–but didn’t. Churchill is seen as a great wartime leader. But his predecessors just prior to the war are judged much more harshly by history. The focus, nevertheless, always seems to be on the UK as the “natural enemy” of Hitler and the country that should have opposed Hitler more strongly in those crucial years before 1939. Other Western allies–such as the USA, Canada, France, and Australia–usually get more of a free ride.
So my question is: which country is the “natural leader” who should be leading the fight against FATCA–and why?
@Dash
Good question.
While it might seem too simplistic I would argue in different ways both Canada and the United Kingdom should be the “natural leader” in the fight against FATCA.
I will have to elaborate more in the morning.
Let’s not forget TimmyTurboTaxGeithner who didn’t cough up the significant amount he owed the IRS – for several failures to file and pay the correct amount over a period of several years, until he was nominated Treasury Secretary.
Remember;
“..Timothy Geithner, ……. was repeatedly advised in writing by the International Monetary Fund that he would be responsible for any Social Security and Medicare taxes he owed on income he earned at the IMF between 2001 and 2004.”………..”…
“…Mr. Geithner didn’t make any Social Security or Medicare tax payments on his income during the years he worked for the IMF, though he did pay income taxes. After the Internal Revenue Service audited him in 2006 and discovered the payroll-tax errors, Mr. Geithner corrected them for 2003 and 2004. Only after Mr. Obama picked him for Treasury secretary last fall did Mr. Geithner pay the Social Security and Medicare tax he owed for 2001 and 2002….” http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123194884833281695
Geithner paid no penalties, and didn’t pay anything until after an IRS audit in 2006 uncovered his unpaid taxes. He only paid up on the amounts that occurred for expired years when nominated for the Treasury post.
In the height of hypocrisy for anyone, and especially for a Treasury Secretary, Geithner was excused for his failures and paid no penalties, yet regularly issued threats towards those living outside the US, and under OVD programs refused to extend the same treatment that he enjoyed, to ordinary people living outside the US who may have owed only a single dollar to the US – due to honest errors, currency exchange phantom gains, incompatibility between their home tax regime and that of the US, the US treatment of mutual funds as ‘PFICs’ and registered savings as ‘taxable foreign trusts’, etc. and whose accounts were legal and local, and filled with their post tax wages earned and held transparently in their home country of tax residence – outside the US.
This is the very same official who pursued FATCA, yet stonewalled Mexico when it wanted US assistance in stemming the flow of illegal or untaxed funds from Mexico to banks in the US http://www.taxanalysts.com/www/features.nsf/Articles/522A39903AFD6CFB8525761D004F113B?OpenDocument
@Tim
I would tend to say Canada, the UK–and possibly also Switzerland–as natural leaders here. When it came to Nazi Germany, Switzerland, with its long history of neutrality, was clearly not a natural leader to fight Hitler. But when it comes to banking secrecy matters, Switzerland has long taken the lead. The fact that the USA was able to force Switzerland to change long standing policies in this area is in many ways the most shocking aspect of all of this to me.
@Dash: To me, there is no question which country could and should have been the natural leader in fighting FATCA. That country is Canada.
Canada is the neighbour, ally and largest trading partner of the United States. We have a long-standing effective tax treaty and information exchange that could have served as a model for the world in combating offshore tax evasion.
Canada is the only country in the world that is connected to ALL of the following: NAFTA, G7, G8, G20, APEC, OECD, Commonwealth, Organization of American States, Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, World Trade Organization and United Nations.
Canada could and should have taken a leadership role with all the nations in those associations and pulled them together to say no to FATCA while offering strong models to combat offshore tax evasion. If countries of the world had united, there would have been a very different outcome,
Instead Canada did nothing except sacrifice its own citizens and residents to a foreign power.
@Bubblebsustin’ I missed that. John Weston now is “not happy” with FATCA? He asked for a meeting with you? When did all of this happen? Very intriguing. Someone seems to suddenly know there is an election in 2015.
These are the word’s of a “natural leader”:
“Canada and the United States are neighbours and have long been the closest of friends. We share a common border and we share many common values.
One of those values is fighting tax evasion. We believe in fair tax systems where everybody pays their share.
Many Canadians, however, have become concerned about the impact of a proposed piece of American tax legislation – the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA.
I share their concern.
We appreciate efforts to combat tax evasion. In fact, our two jurisdictions co-operate to prevent it. But FATCA has far-reaching extraterritorial implications. It would turn Canadian banks into extensions of the IRS and would raise significant privacy concerns for Canadians.
To be clear, Canada respects the sovereign right of the United States to determine its own tax legislation and its efforts to combat tax evasion – the underlying objective of FATCA.
But put frankly, Canada is not a tax haven. People do not flock to Canada to avoid paying taxes. In addition, we have existing ways of addressing these issues with the United States through our Bilateral Tax Information Exchange Agreement. As I said, we share the same goal of fighting tax evasion and we already have a system that works.
To rigidly impose FATCA on our citizens and financial institutions would not accomplish anything except waste resources on all sides.
Another issue, this one affecting more directly the large numbers of dual U.S.- Canadian citizens and their relatives living in Canada, is the IRS’s Foreign Bank Account Report (FBAR) filing requirements.
Most of these Canadian citizens, many with only distant links to the United States, have a very limited knowledge of their tax reporting obligations to the United States. These are honest and law-abiding people, including many senior citizens now caught in a nerve-wracking situation. Moreover, because they work and pay taxes in Canada, they generally do not owe any taxes in the United States in any event. Their only transgression is failing to file the IRS paperwork they were never aware they were required to file.
These people are not the targets of a crackdown on tax evasion. These are not high rollers with offshore bank accounts. These are people who have made innocent errors of omission that deserve to be looked upon with leniency
Rather, these people are typically hard-working citizens of our two great countries.
Faced with the knowledge that they do have an obligation to file U.S. tax returns (even if they most often do not actually owe any taxes) they want to do the right thing.
But the threat of prohibitive fines for simply failing to file a return they were unaware they had to file, is a frightening prospect that is causing unnecessary stress and fear among law abiding hardworking dual citizens.
We support efforts to crack down on legitimate tax evasion. These measures, however, do not achieve that goal.”
-Jim Flaherty
Canadian Finance Minister
Bubblebustin,
And then, what in heaven’s name happened — a Canadian majority Conservative government, all Conservative MPs in lock step with their Dear Leader and the USA, making one million Canadians, their spouses, their children (and even their even their business partners) second class to any other Canadians — no matter their national origin or the national origin of their parents / grandparents.
Betrayal!
Yes, Calgary411, WHAT HAPPENED?
@Bubblebustin, Get real. Those are the words of an idealist, before reality set in, and he realized that his ideals did not match his job profile. Guess which was more important to him. I seem to recall, him responding to a query regarding FATCA, and saying something like, “I cannot do people’s US tax returns for them”. I can find the exact quote if you are interested.
My comment was meant to be ironic.
Yes, I figured that out after I hit “post comment” and saw your comment.
Presuming JF had a heart, no doubt he did not ‘feel good’ about his betrayal.
In fact, it just drives me nuts, thinking that someone in his position would sell out hundreds of thousands of Canadians. I seriously just DO NOT GET IT! Nothing is worth that.
Excuse my off topic rant about Geithner. Every word is true, but it doesn’t really fit the intent of this thread. I just saw the phrase “guilty men” and he is on my list – though it is Canadian Conservative MPs and federal officials who should not have sold Canadians down the river to the south. And I have yet to see anything meaningful from Justin Trudeau on this. Notably missing in action despite some very good work from a few Liberals like MP Hsu and Brison
See for example all the entries here http://openparliament.ca/search/?q=fatca
You can sort by party or by individual.
I want to acknowledge the true leadership that was provided by Green Party leader Elizabeth May, the NDP BC Caucus, and later those MPs who so ably spoke up about the FATCA IGA and the enabling legislation buried in Bill C-31 AND DID NOT take the path of appeasement. See what others said;
results using the keyword ‘FATCA’, sorted by party;
http://openparliament.ca/search/?q=fatca+Party:+%22Green%22
http://openparliament.ca/search/?q=fatca+Party:+%22NDP%22
http://openparliament.ca/search/?q=fatca+Party:+%22Liberal%22
Note that using the keyword ‘FATCA’ is not exhaustive as in early days it and CBT was also alluded to without the acronym, and other issues such as FBAR were;
ex. http://openparliament.ca/debates/2011/9/30/ralph-goodale-1/
and http://openparliament.ca/debates/2011/9/22/paul-dewar-4/
http://openparliament.ca/debates/2011/9/29/hoang-mai-1/
http://openparliament.ca/debates/2011/10/4/alex-atamanenko-1/
http://openparliament.ca/search/?q=fbar
Speaking of guilt and appeasement:
It is also very very instructive to read the wording of some of the Conservative MPs talking about constituent concerns re US CBT, FBARs and FATCA BEFORE their grand leader chose to agree to a FATCA IGA and told them what to say. Interestingly, before the IGA was signed by the Conservatives, we were referred to as ‘Canadians’ and ‘Canadian citizens’, not as ‘US citizens resident in Canada’.
Ex. see samples such as;
“Taxation
Oral Questions
3 p.m.
Macleod
Alberta
Conservative
Ted Menzies Minister of State (Finance)
“Mr. Speaker, we share the hon. member’s concerns. It is absolutely unfair when hard-working, law-abiding Canadian citizens have misunderstood a U.S. law.
These are not high rollers. They are not avoiding taxes. We have called on the U.S. government to look upon these individuals with leniency and we have stressed that we will not, under our Canadian revenue agency, be collecting any of these supposed penalties.”
http://openparliament.ca/debates/2011/10/4/ted-menzies-5/
and, similarly
http://openparliament.ca/debates/2011/10/3/john-williamson-1/
http://openparliament.ca/debates/2011/12/2/earl-dreeshen-1/
and this misleading statement;
http://openparliament.ca/debates/2011/12/2/cathy-mcleod-3/
Now read how the Conservatives chose to recast Canadian citizens AFTER they betrayed us away under the IGA;
May 6th, 2014 / 3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Gerald Keddy South Shore—St. Margaret’s, NS
“………..On the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA, we know that Americans have always had to pay income taxes in the United States, even when they’ve lived abroad. The U.S. has been much more aggressive in tracking down such compliance with the FATCA program, but there’s a lot of misinformation out there that somehow this applies to Canadian citizens. Can you explain who is actually targeted by the FATCA legislation?”
http://openparliament.ca/committees/finance/41-2/32/gerald-keddy-5/
and the Conservative answer:
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Joe Oliver Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
“The brief response is that it only applies to U.S. citizens.”
http://openparliament.ca/committees/finance/41-2/32/joe-oliver-14/
Excellent reseach, Badger. Thank you.
@Dash1729
I think that Canada had to lead. It not only has the most U.S. persons of any English-speaking country, but also the cleanest record on tax. The problem with Switzerland and Britain is that they are on some tax haven lists for certain very well known policies. Canada does not appear on tax haven lists Plus, U.S. persons in Canada are more middle class than the U.S.-born population of the United Kingdom; however, if any part of FATCA or CBT violates World Trade Organization rules, the EU should take it up.