See below March 9, 2016 response of new Liberal Canadian Government to January 21, 2016 FATCA questions raised by NDP Revenue Critic Mr. Pierre-Luc Dusseault (Sherbrooke).
Response comes from Canada Revenue Agency, Minister of National Revenue (who we are suing), Finance Canada, Stephane Dion, and Attorney General (who we are also suing).
SEE THE LINK. The text is in both english and french.
Bottom line: 1) We are still second class — our lawsuit continues; and 2) WE NEED MORE WITNESSES.
— I am amazed that the Prime Minister of Canada allowed this statement to be included in the response, asking Canadians to recognize the public interest of the United States at the expense of the sovereignty of our country:
“…we must resign ourselves to the fact that we are faced with a requirement from the United States and that the requirement corresponds to the public interest of the United States, meaning the integrity of their tax regime.”
— The OPC privacy review was passed on to CRA in January 2016 AFTER the September 2015 turnover of your bank records. In other words, Canada does the privacy assessment AFTER the turnover of private confidential data. See below statement:
“Part (aa): The CRA consulted with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC). A privacy impact assessment (PIA), which is a policy process for identifying, assessing, and mitigating privacy risks, was completed and submitted to the OPC for review on August 27, 2015. The CRA received the OPC’s recommendations on January 4, 2016 [AFTER THE TURNOVER]. The recommendations do not prevent the CRA from exchanging the required information. A response to the OPC’s recommendations is being prepared.”
Mr. Dusseault is now considering his next step. If you have follow-up questions you would like him to ask Mr. Trudeau (e.g., “…But Mr. Trudeau, what about that pre-election statement you made that Canada’s FATCA IGA legislation is insufficient to protect Canadians? What changed your mind?”) you can email him at Pierre-Luc.Dusseault@parl.gc.ca
United States Secretary of State John Kerry offers this accurate assessment of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: “It’s clear that the Prime Minister has begun to make his mark on Canada’s future.”
USCitizenAbroad comments on Government response:
“The disappointment is understandable. That said, the Trudeau Government is behaving exactly as expected. The truth is the the previous Conservative Government and various opposition MPs (at least in the initial stages) did more to oppose FATCA (think Flaherty, think Murry Rankin, think Scott Brison, think Elizabeth May and others) than the Trudeau Government will ever do.
In fact, this is much worse. Not only is Mr. Trudeau NOT protecting Canadian citizens, but what he is actually doing is socializing with the Obama Government. He is being friendly to the biggest bully on the block.
Would this be an appropriate analogy to describes Mr. Trudeau’s behavior? An intruder breaks into the family home one night and attacks your teenaged daughter. Instead of protecting the daughter, the father is having a beer with the intruder. That’s Justin!!
At least the previous Prime Minister did not spend his time trying to ingratiate himself to the United States.
But, what is clear is the following …
The attitude of the Trudeau Government is that it its perfectly okay for the United States to use the IGA to claim ANY Canadian citizen that it wants, at ANY time, as the property of the United States of America. That’s the attitude of the Trudeau Government. Now, this has a historical analogy to the “slave trade” where European powers would go to other nations and say “I’ll take this one and I’ll take that one”. The time has come to stop the politically correct BS and tell it like it is.
It’s simple. U.S. citizenship is nothing but a modern day form of slavery. That’s all it is. The U.S. claims a property interest in all its citizens – their only purpose is to serve the Homeland in some way or another. Some on this blog call it “taxation based citizenship”. That’s fine, but how about “slave based citizenship”….”
“…we must resign ourselves to the fact that we are faced with a requirement from the United States and that the requirement corresponds to the public interest of the United States, meaning the integrity of their tax regime.” <—- (reading this makes me go nuclear).
No matter that this ceding to the requirement involves violating the SOVEREIGNTY of Canada and relegating Canada's place in the world as the 51st State of the United States. We might as well burn all our flags and throw the Star Spangled Banner up on the top of Parliament and take our orders from Congress in Washington DC…oh wait… Our politicians are SPINELESS TRAITORS!!!!
Harjit Sajjan at The White House.
19 hrs · Washington, United States ·
A proud moment from today: meeting President Barack Obama in the Oval Office.
My response:
Be sure to thank Obama for #FATCA and #FBAR. My Canadian kids are having to pay US taxes as a result. #SecondClassCanadian
My response to a comment left by an ignorant homelander American who’s glad that Mr. President makes people pay their dues.
(foul language included – shows my disdain and hatred towards homelander Americans).
D’souza Norbert how much welfare are you collecting? Leech! My family pays its dues where we live, on the roads we drive on, on the services that we use. On the schools my kids go to, ALL OF WHICH ARE IN CANADA. You mad I’m not gonna pay for your scumsucking leech ass on federal dole or your Obamaphone? FUCK YOU.
My comment to another comment left on my comment about my kids should renounce if they want full privileges as Canadian citizens left by an Obama-loving, scumsucking Canadian ignoramus.
(equally foul language contained within).
My kids were born in Canada. Google Burnaby. Ever heard of it? Try this on for size. “When they commit to being full Canadians” – they’ve never been any less than Fully Canadian CITIZENS FROM BIRTH (being born in Canada and have never considered themselves anything but…CANADIAN (I’m spelling that out for you bc you’ve proven yourself incapable of comprehending a shorter narrative). You are a judgemental waste of air. They have no “ties” to the US other than what the US has arbitrarily placed on them due to the land of maternal birth. They’ve never used anything the US considers benefits of being a US citizen. I presume you were born in Canada? Your parents too? All your ancestors. Probably not. So what would you say if the land of your ancestors started taxing you bc your ancestor was born in their country? Betcha you’d probably balk. Hypocrite. You talk about the Earned Income Tax Credit? Yeah evidently according to your misinformation. Well not all income is considered direct “earned income” (from employment). So you’re saying that my 13 yr old, my 11 yr old and my 5 yr old should just consider their savings acct taxable (shut up and put up with the IRS’ prying) that my 13 yr old when he’s old enough should not be able to get a PT job and SAVE for his own education VIA an RESP unlike your spawn, yeah any acct over 10K in savings is reportable. You know just how much a post-secondary education costs these days or are you too busy mooching off welfare?!! Oh. Did you know that student loans are also taxed by the IRS? You have to file #FBAR on any accounts over $10K such as a RESP or a child’s savings acct. Yeah you know about #FATCA; about as much as your usual progressive misinformed American homelander leech Norbert which is to say you know absolutely SHIT. Take your misinformed CDN ASS and decry someone else who is less informed. Your Trudeau sold out just as badly as Harper did. And I consider Harper a traitor. Oh I see. You’re one of those Canadian traitors who values the Charter slightly less than toilet paper and wouldn’t care less if Canada ceded its sovereignty to the USA. What part do you not get. Canada is a sovereign nation AND SHOULD NOT BE SUBJECT TO FOREIGN LAWS. So get your head out of your “America is so great due to Obama” – U.S.A. LOVING ass. My taxes are paid in Canada where we live, where we pay for services and for the roads we drive on. We don’t owe a GODDAMNED THING to the hundreds of millions of illegals and US citizens on the dole or those who want to leech out of our pockets without reciprocal tangible benefits. The Privacy Act was butchered to create a way to shovel in the IGA. And I evidently hold the Charter (which is supposed to protect all Canadians) in higher esteem than you do and I definitely value Canadian sovereignty higher than you as a full rights Canadian citizen born n’bred. Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, yeah right. FUCK YOU!
Sorry about the foul language, fellow Brockers, but I call a spade a spade and I called this waste of biological matter what I thought of her.
@Ginny: Orange Is The New Black. You will look great in Orange–and have some amazing cellmates.
@Everyone. More from A Liberal Hypocrite is a Hypocrite is a Hypocrite.
This week in the House of Commons, “the son of (Greek) immigrants, Peter Fragiskatos spoke on plans to repeal Bill 24.
https://openparliament.ca/debates/2016/3/10/peter-fragiskatos-1/
Here is some of what he said:
Hmm. It already has changed for Canadians born in the United States.
My Liberal MP will not meet with me. I have offered to go with the person who sent this to me if she meets with Mr. Fragiskatos.
An Ontario court protected Ontario citizens from police cell phone fishing expeditions under the Charter. Cell phones! Yet, FATCA rolls on, and Trudeau rolls over.
A parody on the chorus of the song “How You Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm”
Regarding J.T.’s Trip to the White House
How we gonna keep him here on our side
Now that he’s seen D.C.
How we gonna keep him away from B.O.
Mowin’ his grass and kissin’ his ass
How we gonna keep him away from them
That’s a mystery
He’ll never want to plead our sov-reign-tee
So who the deuce will keep our country free
How we gonna keep him here on our side
Now that he’s seen DC
One thing no one has been able to tell me is exactly how the IRS can collect any money or penalties from a Canadian citizen If the money was earned here. They can learn about it with FACTA but how will they get anything? The CRA will not help according to the Tax Treaty. They would likely not have luck in a Canadian Court, so what realistic recourse do they have if you have no US assets and no plans to return? I’ve heard they can try to freeze a bank account but I don’t believe they have ever done that. Any thoughts, thanks
Trudeau speaks unprompted about dual nationality in Washington, DC
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/justin-trudeau-takes-ottawas-debates-to-washington/
The other striking moment came when Trudeau raised, by himself, his decision to repeal the provisions in the Conservatives’ “Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act,” C-24, that stripped some convicted terrorists of their Canadian citizenships.
“One of the things the right wing had done was put forward a bill that took away the citizenship of convicted terrorists,” he said. “A number of countries have done that around the world. It seems like a fairly obvious thing to try and do. If someone’s gonna commit an act of war, an act of terrorism against the country, they probably shouldn’t deserve to keep Canadian citizenship if they’re doing that.”
This is indeed a decent paraphrase of the arguments Conservatives made in support of C-24. Trudeau said his opponents “felt they were on very, very safe ground” with their policy.
“The problem is, as you scratch into that a little deeper, you realize it only really applies to citizens who have, or could have, a dual nationality. So a kid who was born in Canada, and only has a Canadian citizenship — but whose parents were born, for example, in Pakistan — could lose his citizenship if he committed an act of terror, [whereas] a kid who was tenth-generation Canadian home-grown terrorist could never lose his citizenship. And suddenly we’d made citizenship conditional on good behaviour. Or on non-heinous behaviour, which comes down to the same thing. And that devalues the citizenship — made two classes of citizen.”
“I have always viewed law in two categories: a) the rule of law b) Philosophy of law.”
You should know better.
I read, back in the day, that Saddam Hussein wrote a bar exam. The examiners decided that Saddam’s performance didn’t need to be evaluated. After all, Saddam Hussein had a perfect understanding of how the law operates in Iraq.
Well, you should know how the law operates in Canada too. Judges get to do whatever they want. The government gets to do whatever it wants except when judges stop them.
The US is almost the same. Judges get to do whatever they want. The government gets to do whatever it wants, even after judges stop them, except when the government decides that for some unknown reason that maybe it will obey a court order this time.
“Chapter 8: The Day I was Disbarred”
You should be proud if you can be Canada’s Jesselyn Radack.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesselyn_Radack
@Embee, re http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2016/03/10/canadian-government-response-to-ndp-revenue-critic-fatca-iga-questions-prime-minister-justin-trudeau-aims-to-keep-second-class-canadian-citizens-second-class/comment-page-5/#comment-7298316
You’ve outdone yourself – which is hard to do since you’ve got so many great lyrics. I really needed that laugh in the midst of contemplating the mounting smelly pile of Liberal hypocritical USass-kissing betrayal of Canadian citizens and residents.
I don’t give a rat’s ass who designed Sophie’s dress, or what Michelle was wearing. I want bread and not circuses. What I wanted was critical coverage of what exactly Trudeau is giving away to the US. Already confirmed re the response to the Parliamentary Q’s http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/response-of-canadian-government-to-mp-dusseaults-questions-on-fatca-french-english/ that he has chosen Obama over the Canadian citizens he is sworn to protect – and has solidified the backstabbing Liberal position that Canadians with a US birthplace, parentage or any other US taint are expendable, and that they and their Canadian families should pay off the US national debt, and that Canadian taxpayer and accountholder assets will continue to flow in order for the betrayal to continue.
Really angry over the Liberal backstabbing when I review the Hansard and video record of the Liberal critiques of the Cons’ FATCA IGA legislation.
How exactly do the Liberals that stood up to oppose the FATCA IGA live with themselves? They demonstrated that they have all the information and understanding of the situation, and then defend what the Cons put in place.
https://youtu.be/slqAkW_eeUA
@Badger: Their many comments indicate they fully understand FATCA. A sampling of these comments is here:
http://maplesandbox.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Liberal-FATCA-Comments.pdf
This afternoon, I sent the following to Morneau, Brison, Trudeau, Dubourg, Wilson-Raybould and Young.
Toward the beginning (and seems to me could well go beyond identifying a *terrorist*) privacy concerns / biographical basic information / working with Privacy Commissioner CBC interview – a bit about privacy at the border / shared information, Canada and the US
Obama thanked Cape Breton for welcoming Americans fleeing Donald Trump.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/cape-breton-barack-obama-donald-trump-state-dinner-speech-toast-1.3486662
Someone needs to warn them about Obama’s FATCA.
We visited our newly elected Liberal MP to explain our ‘border baby’ status with regards to FATCA
and the first words out of the MP’s assistant was ‘the Conservatives signed this agreement’ or ‘it is a foreign government and their is nothing the Canadian government can do about it’. My answer
was ‘you are the government of Canada now and you have an obligation to protect your Citizens’.
You should all be going to your MP’s and doing the same. The cost of implementing the FATCA
agreement to to non affected Canadians should be published. The problem is getting the Canadian media to report on the subject. I have written to five local radio hosts in Vancouver and
none will touch the FATCA story so good luck getting any media attention.
No one who frequents this website would have expected a response much different than the one we got from the new Liberal government to the NDP Revenue critic’s FATCA IGA questions. No big surprises here. Yet there have been a lot of upset and angry comments to this post, despite the recent uplifting news that the lawsuit has finally been fully funded.
It’s almost as if we are all experiencing a PTSD-like reaction where we’re revisiting our original OMG moments. I think a similar thing may have happened when the Conservative government announced the FATCA IGA. That familiar kick in the gut. The sense of doom. Panic. A reminder of that shock of awareness when we were slapped hard with the reality that we are not what we thought we were. We are not free people. The government of the country we live in, which we once thought had our backs, never did; it not only witnesses, but facilitates a foreign country’s insistence that it has the right to know the private details of Canadians’ financial lives, and the right to tax and impose complex, expensive and potentially penalty laden reporting rules on us.
No wonder we are all freaking out after reading the Liberals latest bullshit statement: ” we must resign ourselves to the fact that we are faced with a requirement from the United States and that the requirement corresponds to the public interest of the United States, meaning the integrity of their tax regime.”
WhiteKat you have expressed exactly how I feel, and how many others may as well. We keep getting kicked by our own government.That bothers me more than what the US demands from me.
Donald. Of course you are 100% correct. Too bad not everyone has figured this out.
we must resign ourselves to the fact that we are faced with a requirement from the (insert threatening country here)and that the requirement corresponds to the public interest of the (insert threatening country here), meaning the integrity of their tax regime.” The Canadian government barely has control of it’s citizens at this point. Every day, more and more people are getting more and more angry at the corruption in our government and our country. Canada is clearly at risk of being taken over by any other country as long as we are giving our citizens away in this manner. My prediction of our future is bloodshed and fighting. It seems we are heading for civil unrest and even the good law abiding citizens have had enough. The government’s response is more and more surveillance of it’s citizens and more destruction of privacy laws to monitor normal everyday people. Makes me think wonder if they are scared that the corruption will end in the future and they will lose their pensions….
@We are all Canucks,
Persons on this site have been attempting just what you suggest for many years now.
A few links you can view include:
the subjects of this blog’s posts: http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/blog-archive/
and, media coverage (never sustained): http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/media-and-blog-articles-open-for-comments-part-3-of-3/
and, a taste of actions in the Canadian Parliament after communications with many of our government representatives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slqAkW_eeUA,
all at this point to naught. Full of hypocrisy all.
Thank you for contacting your own Member of Parliament and reporting in your comment what the sorry result was.
Getting to this thread quite “late in the day”. I am so angry I can barely speak so it’s a good thing all of you have done so well in formulating such great responses to the government’s circularly reasoned iterations of “the law is the law”. We KNOW “the law is the law”! We want the damned law repealed!
“Canada is clearly at risk of being taken over by any other country as long as we are giving our citizens away in this manner.”
I saw a collection of 10 proposed designs for Canadian women to appear on the hundred dollar bill.
Laura Secord was not among them.
Surgite.
I am disgusted. I don’t even want to be Canadian. I feel like I am a Citizen Orphan.
One simple amendment. Just one. I have never wanted to appropriate another’s cultural experience, but today I truly feel like property. One country claims us, the other abandons us. I have no happy optimistic words today. Other than, fight on in the courts.
Hypocrites. Trudeau is like the eclipse. There are no sunny days for us.
See you in court.
We need witnesses. Please help if you can.
@Ginny…..all things have a purpose in life, this is no different. Good comes and springs forth from everything no matter how dark it appears to us.
Just think of this motley crew you have become associated with!!!
But for this one cause at one point in time, we put aside all our other differences to work as one mind.
Yes, one simple amendment and one simpler where they split the difference and stated “Master Nationality Rule ties their hands because a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.”
I am thankful that you and Gwen are the plaintiffs as you two are the perfect plaintiffs.
Any Dr Who and Torchwood fans?
This whole matter reminds me of Torchwood, Children of Earth;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchwood:_Children_of_Earth
Sorry you’re feeling bad Ginny. I think we all are but as you’ve told me before, remember our cause is just. Hang in there.