From today’s ipolitics.ca article Lynne Swanson is also quoted. Here is part of the article:
“…Members of the Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee voted unanimously Tuesday to invite Lebouthillier to appear along with Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien and Marie-Claude Juneau, privacy coordinator for the CRA…
While prominent Liberals, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, criticized the information sharing deal before the election, Lebouthillier has defended it. “Minister Lebouthillier wants to reassure Canadians that all exchanges of information are subject to strict confidentiality rules,” reads the e-mail sent by Lebouthillier’s office…
Lebouthillier’s position has angered groups that have been fighting the deal such as the Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty, which is asking the courts to declare it unconstitutional.
Meanwhile, two Liberal cabinet ministers who had criticized the deal to transfer banking records in the past are no longer calling for it to be scrapped or changed.
Speaking on the way into a cabinet meeting Tuesday, Treasury Board President Scott Brison and Transport Minister Marc Garneau rallied behind the position adopted last week by Lebouthillier.
Brison, who sharply criticized the deal and tried to have it amended when he was Liberal finance critic, said the Liberal government has to work with the agreement negotiated by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.
“The previous government negotiated with the Americans on this and we have certainly inherited the situation we have,” Brison told iPolitics. “At the time, the previous government could have negotiated more effectively. The question is where are we now and it is a difficult one to deal with retroactively.”
In 2014, Garneau accused the IRS of trying to get the Canada Revenue Agency to “do its dirty work” through the deal – a deal he now supports. “I take the position that our government is taking now and has been expressed by the minister of revenue,” he said Tuesday…”
elizabeththompson@ipolitics.ca
Revenue Minister asked to explain herself in Parliament.
Another lying session.
Politicians seem to have the idea that the way they act in committee is progress, when all they’d have to do is vote to repeal all federal tax laws and start over with the FairTax.
They are so afraid to make taxes transparent. They’d rather have taxes buried in the cost in products and keep all those 20 million people making a living off of the Marxist Income tax.
Campaign contributions slipped in from the ”K” street lobbyists, who are hired by some big shot to see that their specialized amendment to the already complicated tax code. It is already loaded with 8800 amendments since 1986 when Reagan thought he had a tax code that would be good for the country. If they’d left it alone maybe it would have been good, but as it is now it is killing the Middle Class, in fulfillment of Karl Marx’s dream of destruction of that class. The U.S. Congress is loaded with Marxists and some of them are so dumb they are unaware that their brand of Socialism has failed wherever tried for the last 120 years.
So Scott Brison is a lying piece of shit. Canadian politicians and two faced liars period!! they can be bought and paid for. Wow, we are learning so much! The general public in Canada has no idea of how much they are at risk.
I am observing the Liberal government dismantle the legacy of the Conservative government; everything that is apart from FACTA. Outrage is easy when you are a minority party. It takes guts to defend your citizens. We are again faced with a gutless regime. Betrayed is an underestimate.
Kudos to the NDP for continuing the pressure. I expect it will not budge our “transparent” and “Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian” Government, or our “Child of the Charter” justice minister but a big thank you to them.
I sincerely hope that the questions asked of the Minister will not focus on “privacy issues”. That is not the most contentious of the problems with FATCA. Rather, having Canadian funds, earned in Canada and already declared in Canada, siphoned out of the Canadian economy and put into the U.S. tax base is totally obscene and an affront to any Canadian, as is the U.S. taxing the capital gains on Canadian homes, purchased with Canadian dollars.
I’ll cut and paste a comment on another entry here that sums this all up very well:
The question that should be asked of these Liberal officials is not whether they endorse the sharing of Canadian banking records with the IRS, but rather do they support the U.S. Treasury entering into the Canadian tax base and applying U.S. capital gains tax on a subset of Canadian citizens upon the sale of their Canadian homes, purchased with Canadian earned and taxed dollars? Do they support the regular and continuous transfer of Canadian earned dollars to the U.S. Treasury to cover taxes and penalties applied by the U.S. Treasury and IRS to a subset of Canadian citizens deemed taxable on their Canadian earned income by the U.S. Treasury? Do they accept that a distinction is made between Canadians, based solely on their origin or their parentage, exposing them to taxation in another country, where they don’t live, don’t use services and may never have even resided or worked? Do they support discrimination of any kind being applied to Canadian citizens?
PLEASE, THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS THAT NEED TO BE ASKED!
I have the impression that many of these politicians (and journalists) naively believe that signing on to FATCA was only an information sharing agreement and people are angry about possible privacy violations. It is not only that. It is far far worse than that. It is a “sovereign” nation, Canada in this case, opening up its tax base to another country and allowing that other country to apply its taxes and penalties to funds earned and already taxed solely in Canada and forcing U.S. tainted Canadian citizens to transfer Canadian earned money into the U.S. tax base and the coffers of the U.S. Treasury, all under threats of sanctions and penalties for anyone who doesn’t follow U.S. orders and U.S. laws…IN CANADA!. PLEASE, MS. THOMPSON, WRITE A STORY ABOUT THAT! ASK THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR GETTING CANADA INTO THIS TRAP, IF THEY APPROVE OF CANADIAN EARNED DOLLARS BEING TAXED ALSO BY THE U.S. That is the crux of this story, not simply some privacy issues.
I voted NDP in the last election due to the support of our position by Murray Rankin and Nathan Cullen, and because of Trudeau’s apparent (and now confirmed) lack of real knowledge of our issue. What I am terribly surprised and appalled by is the flip-flop of Brison and Garneau. I’m very glad that Elizabeth Thompson was able to get statements out of both these men so that we now know their true colours.
Thank you again, Ms. Thompson for your interest in this. It’s the story of the century and you may well be the Woodward AND the Bernstein who finally gets it out there so that the public sits up and takes notice.
I just posted a VERY brief request for Witnesses on a comment to the ipolititcs.ca article which has not yet been trashed after 14 minutes. Two previous attempts including the ADCS website and/or my ADCS email failed.
CAN THOSE CANADIANS WHO WILL NOT BE WITNESSES BEGIN ASKING IN COMMENTS TO SUCH ARTICLES THAT WITNESSES COME FORWARD TO FILE AFFIDAVITS IN OUR FEDERAL COURT TRIAL?
I may be too close to all of this and can’t be objective, but I really feel that a lawsuit in Federal Court, with the witnesses we need, has a better chance of success in repealing the Canadian FATCA compliance law than the approach of complaining to the majority Liberal Government.
Here is what I said (as a test) as a comment but you can come up with better requests for witnesses. Please help:
We should not be surprised by anything the Fibbing Libs do. Yesterday, shortly after the Brussels bombings, our Liberal Defence Minister refused to take questions from Elizabeth Thompson.
Why? He told her he had to get pizza for his kids.
I hope the kids enjoyed the pizza.
I have tried to reach Elizabeth Thompson via email, without success, to explain my situation . I am a spouse of an accidental American who will be taxed on my full house’s value paid for my my sole Canadian income, but now owned by myself and my wife through marriage. If the banks find out about my wife’s birthplace, my Canadian home would be taxed for capital gains because of my wife’s US taint. The is pure Canadian income that paid for my house when I met my wife. I would have NEVER married her if I had any clue that her birthplace was toxic. I cannot turn back time, however, I am ready to be interviewed anytime.
Happy to see official opposition house leader Peter Julian’s name pop up in these efforts. He and I crossed paths at a pre-election NDP fundraiser here in my community. He gave me some spiel about how the NDP had been leading the charge against the FATCA IGA, to which I disagreed both verbally and in this follow-up letter to our meeting. At that moment I was trying to get the NDP to join in the effort to have the IGA’s implementation delayed when the IRS said it would allow certain nations to delay the handover of account information:
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/09/22/letter-from-elizabeth-may-green-party-of-canada-leader-to-canadas-prime-minister-requesting-delay-in-fatca-turnover/comment-page-1/#comment-6591052
“Dear Mr Julian,
Thank you for your acknowledgement of receipt of my letter. I unfortunately have not heard from you in response to my urgent request.
When I spoke with you, you claimed that the NDP leads the anti-FATCA efforts in Parliament. The reality that the Greens have made FATCA IGA repeal a part of its election platform and your apparent lack of response undermines that argument. Elizabeth May sent a letter to the PM today requesting him to do what I’ve essentially asked you to ask Mr Mulcair to do:
[Ms May’s letter]
If I, and millions of Canadians were to vote based on this single issue, I would have to vote Green – for now. Will you respond and press Mr Mulcair for a similar letter?
Yours truly,
…”
Think I’ll drop him another line, thanking him instead this time.
Watch the video exchange between Peter Julian and the Revenue Minister in the House of Commons yesterday:
http://youtu.be/VeJGVJCcyDI
When I go to CPAC and listen to the minister’s response, she is clearly lying to Canadians. It just amazes me how there are two sets of laws and standards in Canada. These people are actually allowed and encouraged to lie to the public. WOW, we are so doomed as a country!
this lady sounds Brain dead reading from a card. Is she to stupid to answer the question that she was asked.
She might have just answered ” Wayne Gretzky used to play hockey. ” for an answer.
With 35 million people this is what we have for a minister.
Unless my French has become really bad, she didn’t answer anything about the question she was asked.
She said that she really cares about the privacy of all Canadians !!!
so, how you care about the privacy of all Canadians is you break all the privacy laws buy sending personal
information to a foreign government without the person’s consent.
Its like saying I care so much about Canadian children that to look after them I sent 6 kids to a child molestors house for the afternoon un supervised so the molester could look after them. How sick is this lady.
Would have been nice to have heard the answer in English, since public school French education does not make one bilingual in this country. And that education for me was 35 years ago.
I didn’t understand her card read French answer but it sounded the old conservative responses Calandra and Polievre. It seems the Liberals learn fast.
agreed it would be nice to hear what she has to say in English
can anyone paraphrase or translate what it says…..
thanks in advance
I think it’s her canned response that goes like this:
“Minister Lebouthillier wants to reassure Canadians that all exchanges of information are subject to strict confidentiality rules,” reads the e-mail sent by Lebouthillier’s office.
“The CRA ensures that tax cooperation with its foreign partners is done in a manner fully consistent with privacy rights in Canada. It is important to note that Canada and the United States have a long history of exchanging tax information in a fair and responsible manner, going back to 1942.”
Audio of yesterday’s Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee meeting. Can’t fast forward.
http://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/XRender/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2/20160322/-1/24731
Hope link works.
@brianEldemen
Its like saying I care so much about Canadian children that to look after them I sent 6 kids to a child molestors house for the afternoon un supervised so the molester could look after them.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
To me it is like saying I care so much about Canadian children, I stole them from their families, stripped them of their language and cultures and placed them in Residential Schools so they could be abused by Government sponsored agents or Religious leaders.
@No To Tyranny
My position is that it encompasses both because both the transfer of private banking information, the import of American law which results in the transfer of Canadian earned capitol and that information is an affront to Canadian sovereignty. To me it is not an either or situtaion.
@ No To Tyranny
You are correct regarding the type of questions that need to be asked. They need to be carefully thought out and remove as much wiggle room as possible. Standard FATCA/IGA questions will be met with evasive bullshit answers that we are now used to from the Liberal liars. Your example questions are a great start. They do not relate directly to FATCA, but are driving at what loyalty this government has to Canada, e.g. “Do they support discrimination of any kind being applied to Canadian citizens?”
The Minister of Revenue is a complete joke, obviously clueless as to what she is talking about. She has no inkling what happens to data sent to the US, and to say it is guaranteed secure in the hands of the IRS is sheer nonsense. I’d be embarrassed to say something so idiotic.
Bubblebustin says
March 23, 2016 at 2:18 pm
I think it’s her canned response that goes like this:
“Minister Lebouthillier wants to reassure Canadians that all exchanges of information are subject to strict confidentiality rules,” reads the e-mail sent by Lebouthillier’s office.
“The CRA ensures that tax cooperation with its foreign partners is done in a manner fully consistent with privacy rights in Canada. It is important to note that Canada and the United States have a long history of exchanging tax information in a fair and responsible manner, going back to 1942.”
………………….
Yes, that is pretty much what she said. I just spent the time to listen to yesterday’s Question Period, that comes with translation on Parlvu.
@NativeCanadian
It sounds like you would make a great witness. You are in the exact situation as my husband.