Dear Supporters,
Many of you probably predicted that I would not be saying this today, but this message is not a dream: You came up with yet another $100,000 payment — now making a total of $400,000 provided to the Arvay team.
In the last twelve days you actually donated more than $40,000 — an amazing achievement for small donors. This accomplishment proves to all those people who want us to fail — that we are very determined.
You gave until it hurt and then you gave a lot more. It’s hard not to get teary-eyed over the generosity of our supporters, who have come through every time.
We know that the pace of your litigation is painfully slow, and this is unfortunately as expected. The Government will continue to do its best to slow down the process, but we now have the assistance of a case management judge to help keep the process moving more fairly.
We filed in August 2014 and it has taken a very long time (one year) before we are finally into a (summary) trial (August 4-5, 2015). We cannot predict the outcomes of this trial, based on only part of our arguments and, with your continued support, we will prepare for all possibilities.
[Happy birthday Gwen!]
Thank you for your trust,
Stephen Kish,
ADCS-ADSC Chair,— on behalf of Plaintiffs Ginny and Gwen, their families, and the ADCS-ADSC Directors
——————————————————————————————————-
Chers amis et donateurs,
Certains d’entre vous avaient probablement pensé que je ne pourrais pasvous annoncer une si bonne nouvelle aujourd’hui. Mais voilà : ensemble, nous avons réussi à ramasser un autre montant de 100 000 $, ce qui fait un total de 400 000 $ à remettre à l’équipe de MeArvay.
Dans les 12 derniers jours seulement, vous avez donné plus de 40 000 $, un exploit tout à fait extraordinaire pour des « petits donateurs ». À tous ceux qui souhaitent nous voir échouer, cette réussite prouve que nous sommes des plus déterminés. Et que nous réussirons.
Vous avez donné jusqu’à ce que ça fasse mal, puis vous avez donné encore. Difficile de rester insensible devant une si grande générosité.
Nous sommes bien conscients du fait que notre litige avance de façon péniblement lente. Malheureusement, tout ça est normal. Le gouvernement continue à ralentirle processus, mais on nous a maintenant attitré un juge responsable de la gestion de notre dossier qui veillera à ce que le processus progresse de façon plus juste.
En août 2014, nous avons engagé une poursuite contre le gouvernement canadien. Près d’un an plus tard, nous avons enfin la date pour notre procès sommaire : les 4 et 5 août 2015. Impossible de prévoir le dénouement de ce procès, basé uniquement sur une partie de nos arguments juridiques. Mais avec votre appui, nous serons prêts pour toutes les possibilités.
(Bonne fête, Gwen !)
Au nom de nos deux plaignantes, Ginny et Gwen, de leurs familles et des directeurs de l’ADCS-ADSC, je vous remercie de votre confiance.
Stephen Kish,
Président de l’ADCS-ADSC
Question for Stephen Kish:
Is an injunction in the works for ADSC?
Hopefully Joe Arvay is smarter than Obama, Harper and the entire US and Canadian governments combined.
This comment has been moved to be included in the discussion of the ADCS-ADSC lawsuit.
Schubert1975 says:
Just guessing here, but the BS that the government plans to process and submit 100,000 documents that might “possibly” be relevant, strikes me (no doubt also the legal team) as a smokescreen to delay and swamp our legal team. That’s a lot of documents. I find it hard to imagine anything close to that number of documents would have any relevance to the Statement of Claim or the legal issues being raised. Maybe part of the smokescreen would include some chaff (mixing a metaphor), like the substantial number of private emails and submissions to Finance and government MPs made by many participants on this website. Which relate to the issues (hence “possibly” relevant) but not to what the government itself did nor pertinent to any of the legal issues in the Statement of Claim. Not unlike the large volume of utterly uninformative bumpf the government tabled in the House in response to questions from various opposition MPs in the days leading up to the tabling of the IGA and enabling legislation.
Aiming for delays that would carry into the Fall suggests to me the Harperoids are planning a federal election in the Spring or early Summer. I doubt they want any of this to get into court and the press before the election. Expect to see further red herrings and smoke screens (more mixed metaphors) re the Mike Duffy trial …
Mr. Transparency and Accountability and his cohorts strike again, from the broom closet
This comment has been moved to be included in the discussion of the ADCS-ADSC lawsuit.
Petros says:
One gets the impression that Roy Berg isn’t really enamoured with our litigation efforts.
@Bubblebustin
Hopefully Bopp is as well. Because we are getting down to the wire.
@ noinjunctionnodonation and @Walter;
We are all impatient and looking for remedy, and prevention of harm. Of course the government is hard at work doing all that they can in whatever way they can to pervert, delay and prevent justice and deny equal rights under the Charter, the Constitution and other Canadian law. That is not news.
However;
Who should we look to for the most experience and strategy and good counsel in this instance? Doesn’t the best and wisest counsel come from the person with the actual proven track record – who has the requisite expertise, training, skills, knowledge, experience, and successes in this arena – already amply demonstrated all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada?
I don’t want to make haste and repent at leisure.
I myself would put my money on following the wise counsel of the expert already at work on the problem – Mr. Arvay. I am sure he has an informed opinion on how best to proceed. I am sure that the government has tried these tactics before in other cases that he either headed or is famliar with.
You are of course entitled to your personal opinion. But for mine, I think it is counterproductive to insist that donations should be contingent on the legal experts and the legal team taking instructions from each and every individual who might have contributed to this effort.
What is the alternative that you are proposing? Fund no effort at all and thereby ensure that NO result is achieved? Do you see any other organized effort in existence to do anything about this in Canada at all?
I am expecting that one tactic the government and its allies would enjoy or employ is to attempt to disrupt the funding of this challenge – brought and supported by ordinary citizens and residents.
Thanks, badger.
As well and of course, an injunction in the Canadian challenge would only affect the handing over of data on Canadian *US Persons*. An injunction in the US Bopp case would be different than one in Canada.
@badger & C411
I am waiting to see what both Arvay and Bopp do. I cannot imagine them not requesting injunctions. If they don’t I will most likely pull the plug on donating. Unless of course I see that there is a logic that makes better sense for not requesting the injunctions.
In any case, as I indicated on another thread, I am not in favor of running after “carve outs” for certain individuals (as Obama has proposed) because I believe that such carve outs would undermine the overall effort (legally and politically).
PS. Granted, an injunction in Canada would not directly help people in other countries. However, it would put a major monkey wrench into FATCA that would most likely have political ramifications elsewhere.
BTW, I don’t see FATCA so much as an issue of law, I see it more as an issue of “might makes right” power politics.
@Schubert1975
Your “broom closet” comment is not lost on some of us, lol!
@Walter. You are free to act as you will.
As I said, I think it is counterproductive for us to expect that the mere fact of donations as individuals should drive strategy of a legal team in this effort. I don’t expect Mr. Arvay, and Mr. Bopp and their team to take direction from each and every one of us. That would be impossible and unwieldy. Challenges of this kind are not conducted by getting consensus from each donor. I also don’t expect that they will or should share their logic and strategy on the open internet, and thus turn over their cards for the world and their opponents to see. No-one would conduct a legal challenge that way.
This may be crowd funded, but it cannot be crowd directed. I don’t see how legal experts can poll all the donors in order to decide how best to proceed. I am not a constitutional expert or a lawyer, and have no insight into this case – and no knowledge that Mr. Arvay and his team do not. Thus, I do not make my support contingent on whether they follow my opinion.
And if you disapprove of the gameplan eventually, what then is the viable alternative to the ADCS, and Bopp efforts you are offering?
@badger
“As I said, I think it is counterproductive for us to expect that the mere fact of donations as individuals should drive strategy of a legal team in this effort.” — Of course not!
“I also don’t expect that they will or should share their logic and strategy on the open internet, and thus turn over their cards for the world and their opponents to see. No-one would conduct a legal challenge that way.” — You are right, I want to see what they do.
“And if you disapprove of the gameplan eventually, what then is the viable alternative to the ADCS, and Bopp efforts you are offering?” — Mass renunciations and defiance will be the only thing left.
Over the last several months the question of an injunction has been asked several times. The idea has been forwarded to the lawyers. As others have said, for this to play out we have to trust the people that started this whole thing and continue to donate dozens of hours a week working on this. There are very smart people running this effort who have everyone’s well being in mind. The lawyer knows what he is doing and we have to be patient. Threatening to withhold donations unless things go exactly the way you want it is just silly.
@ Phil “The lawyer knows what he is doing and we have to be patient. Threatening to withhold donations unless things go exactly the way you want it is just silly.” I agree fully with that statement. If anyone is worried about the Arvey team, just look at their last case against our scoundrel government, Unanimous decision in their favor. If you ask me who I trust? Clearly, the Arvey team without a doubt. No lawyer will completely disclose his/her strategy in any case, especially one as important as this one. I will continue to donate and completely trust the Arvey team and everyone involved here who are working tirelessly for our rights.
My concern is that protecting the charter (which is what this lawsuit is about) and trying to stop the reporting before it happens (i.e. preventing immediate damage from happening) might be 2 different things.
While I agree that the legal team should not expose their strategy, I also think that the people should know what they’re paying for.
I have no doubt the Arvay team will win and the charter will still mean something in Canada, but is their mandate winning the charter lawsuit or trying to protect the people who are immediately at risk? Or both?
The IRS website mentions:
2015: Reporting Begins
When to Report
March 31 FFIs in non-IGA jurisdictions and FFIs in Model 2 IGA jurisdictions
September 30 FFIs in Model 1 IGA jurisdictions:
Canada has a model 1 IGA, meaning that the deadline to have the first batch of tainted people protected is September 30th. Can this happen, or are we just paying for the sake of future US immigrants and the for the charter to actually mean something?
@Brockers, let me add my two cents to this and maybe smooth the sea as it is……
I could care less if Arvey is an expert. I have known many experts on all kinds of subjects who were unable to put that expertise into wise practice.
The stakes on this matter are rather high and before I donated my first Euro, I performed my own due diligence.
Was Joe Arvey an expert in Canadaian Law? Yes he is but there are many experts in Canadian Law and I suspect that there are experts advising the Government on this matter.
Having jumped that first hurdle I needed to determine if Joe Arvey was not just an expert lawyer but a master of his craft. As a young boy my father often told me never to hire simply a carpenter but rather to always find the cabinetmaker and hire him to do your job.
Is Joe Arvey a cabinetmaker (a wise man) or a well qualified carpenter (an expert)?
I am very familiar with the legal profession and researched his cases looking at those that he won and lost.Joe Arvey is a cabinet maker, a very wise lawyer.
As you all know, I disagree with the legal fundamentals of his recent court victory. Personally I would have preferred that he lost that case. But I am not blinded by my personal emotions and could clearly see in the recent case, Joe Arvey exhibited great legal/professional wisdom in representing his client.
While I disagree with the outcome of that case,the victory reinforced my due diligence.
It is indeed inappropriate for Joe Arvey to be seeking consensus from donors.
Yet, ADCS has been using IBS forums as a proverbial petri dish to gather data and knowledge to relay to the Arvey legal team. That is wisdom…….
To myself it does appear at face value that an injunction should be sought. I assume that has been brought to his attention by the ADCS team.
I am fully confident that Joe Arvey will weigh the merits of asking for an injunction against not asking for an injunction. He knows that his client will be damaged and suffer irreperable harm if data is disclosed so he will not take this consideration lightly.
What I do believe is important is that if an injunction is not sought, that ADCS and/or Joe Arvey notify the donors that an injunction was considered but after careful consideration was not pursued. Regardless, the final decision on injunction or not will affect my support.
Still can’t get over 100,000 documents that are deemed possibly relevant for the discovery phase. Maybe some are simply translations in French? (. . . Inuit and First Nations languages?)
@ George, I also trust Joe Arvay, and his recent victory bolstered my confidence in him, although I happen to support the court ruling, but respect that you see it differently. (Here is my reason: it distinguishes between one’s “right to live” and one’s “duty to live” in the context of a terminal, incurable disease such as ALS; it means giving the victim of such a disease with the help of consenting physician the opportunity to die sooner and more humanely than having to die by tiny degrees of less and less and less functionality and prolonged suffering that seems endless.)
As you said, I’d like Arvay to “weigh the merits of asking for an injunction against not asking for an injunction” but I don’t insist that he try to do so. I fully trust his professional opinion. I don’t think there’s anyone else in the country who knows better than he how to win a Charter case at the Supreme Court.
It should be pretty obvious by now that I don’t know diddly-squat about litigating. The only courtroom I’ve ever been in was an 1800’s recreation in a heritage theme park. This is a big learning experience for me. I do wish Anne Frank would pop back in with some words of wisdom for us though because I’m interested in these types of discussions and she is good at explaining legal procedures. Mr. Arvay will know what direction to go because he’s faced similar situations before and he will know how to protect his strategies (hopefully from electronic snooping too — disturbing that should even be an issue but it’s the world we live in now). I trust the team and I will continue to donate.
@Jan
Just a layman’s guess since I don’t really know what the gov’t is doing but I’d guess that many are emails. I’ve read the average office worker sends/receives 200 emails a day so that is about 5,000 person days worth or 25 person years. So if a team of 25 spent a year negotiating the IGA it makes sense.
Of course if they are emails there will be much duplicated information and most of it will be junk. But there could be some important conversations in there which show that the government’s intentions with the IGA are not as benign as they have been pretending. The key will be how to search through the mountains of noise for the small amount of useful information.
Sorry added an extra ‘0’–it is actually only about 500 person days worth of email which isn’t really much at all–a team of any size will generate 100,000 total emails very quickly.
I am with Embee on this.
The litigator, his team, and the ADCS organizers know very well what is at stake. The organizers have lived with these issues and their permutations since at least 2011 and are as informed as any laypersons could be – (and that is a damn sight more informed than many who voted to implement the IGAs). The issue of preventing as much harm and disclosure of data as possible is beeing brought forward here on this thread, but has been raised since the very early days of IBS. There is a lawyer involved in the ADCS team. The issue of an injunction must have been raised and discussed.
I trust the ADCS team and the litigators, and I think we must let them do their work. They will have read and relayed the input here. It is counter productive to threaten the success of the overall strategy by broadcasting it to all and sundry. That does not happen in any other legal proceeding – whether brought by an individual or a group. So why would this endeavour be any different?
@noone, I don’t read this situation as being as straightforward as you describe – as an either or situation. You mention; “……protecting the charter (which is what this lawsuit is about) and trying to stop the reporting before it happens (i.e. preventing immediate damage from happening) ….”
Here is the description of the aims of ADCS:
http://www.adcs-adsc.ca/Issue_Cost.html
and the Claims;
https://adcsovereignty.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/hillis-filed-amended-statement-of-claim-to-the-defendants.pdf
That should go quite a ways to describing to people what they are paying for, but it means so much more – think of the benefit of just even bringing this forward to fruition, exposing the iniquities of US extraterritorial CBT and FATCA under a microscope and to wider public scrutiny, airing the issues, and preventing both the US government and the Canadian one from disregarding our rights, without a fight, etc.
This litigation has significance well beyond the statement of claim. And the statement of claim cannot list everything before hand. Some of the effects and significance has yet to become completely apparent – it is early days, and none of us has a crystal ball.
It is also not as if we can go shopping around for anti-FATCA forces to engage. This is it. This is the real deal, and it was organized and funded by volunteers. The litigator is the real deal.
When for example I sent a donation/membership fee to the Civil Liberties Association, I did not expect that they would submit their strategy to me so that I could vet it. I agreed with their concerns and the issues they raised, and the general direction of their efforts, and then I trusted to their substantial expertise to decide how best to proceed in litigation.
Oh dear. While we’ve been in a to-donate-or-not-to-donate debate, the amount needed per day rose to $1200. Let’s focus on doing our part for a successful court challenge and let Mr. Arvay focus on his part. That way nobody will end up with blurry vision. Not that I don’t learn a lot from the discussions and value the contributions made to them. I just really, really value the contributions made from all over the world to the ADCS fund. As I see it, this is our chance to be part of something historic.
I agree. The people that are running this for us have been on this for years. I think some new comers to this site are understandably having a hard time absorbing everything that is going on, but everyone needs to take a breath and relax.
In for a penny; in for a pound. The ADCS lawsuit must proceed.
And the ADCS directors must continue to heed advice of counsel. Don’t hire a dog, and do your own barking! Arvay and his team have traveled this path many times before.
It’s a challenge to organize a lawsuit of this magnitude through crowd-funding. It is also impossible for the legal team and plaintiffs to always disclose or discuss their strategy publicly.
This will get a lot more attention as things heat up. Success will be historic. And all who supported the lawsuit will recall their contributions the rest of their lives.
Having been a plaintiff in lawsuits, part of strategy was dumping marginally relevant documents (mostly emails) on the defendants, who then had to pay their lawyers to sort through and read them. I’m not surprised that the government is claiming to have a vast amount of documents to sort (and then dump on the plaintiffs). It’s just part of a full-contact game.
I do believe in the power of a judge’s injunctions, where such can be obtained. A US District Court judge in Texas has blocked Obama’s sweeping immigration amnesty, at least for now, based on a technical reading of procedural law. In this case the judge know to be critical of the Obama administration’s position on immigration, and the choice of judge was probably a critical part of strategy. The blockage may be temporary, but it has kept the issue in the spotlight, and forced the Obama admin to scramble.
“United States District Judge Andrew Hanen ruled late Monday night to block executive actions Obama took late last year to shield as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation. In delaying the ruling, Hanen halted Obama’s executive action, ruling that the administration had failed to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act, which calls for the White House to afford a longer notification and comment period before taking action.”
– CNN
In case anyone is getting confused about which lawsuit, where and why, let’s do some ABCs.
A) Joseph Arvay challenges the Canadian gov’t to repeal its legislation to implement the FATCA IGA. Funding — ADCS donors. [ http://www.adcs-adsc.ca/ ] and [ http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/02/17/adcs-adsc-litigation-updates-key-actions-milestones-and-timeline-estimates/ ]
B) James Butera challenges the U.S. gov’t to get immediate relief for “Accidental Americans” from both FATCA and the high renunciation fee. Funding — a single anonymous donor. [ https://adcsovereignty.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/adcs_prr_oct27_2014-efinal.pdf ]
C) Jim Bopp challenges the U.S. gov’t to get FATCA abolished. Funding — FATCA Legal Action donors. [ https://fatcalegalaction.com/ ]
A), B) and C) are steps towards what we hope will eventually be D) a challenge to the U.S. gov’t to abolish CBT and adopt RBT. (Sometimes you have to make some passes before you reach your ultimate goal.)
There is also the X) factor — the lawsuit being pursued by Florida and Texas banking associations. Their success would completely demolish the faux “reciprocity” meme which would then force those governments who were banking on the “rewards” of reciprocity to do a rethink about the IGAs they signed. [ see: http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/02/15/florida-bankers-assoc-versus-treasury-department-deliberations-begin/ ]