WITNESS SEARCH UPDATE FOR CANADIAN FATCA IGA LAWSUIT:
WE STILL SEEK MORE CANADIAN WITNESSES:
Have you experienced marital stress or breakup, or medical or psychiatric illness because Canada turned you and your family over to a foreign country — or because you were afraid and entered into IRS compliance and suffered harm, or because you are in “hiding” and can’t afford to be IRS compliant or to renounce? Be a witness.
No single witness will be “perfect” from a litigation point of view. We will be seeking more witnesses (almost) right up to the time of submission of court documents. Your specific situation, that we cannot predict, might have unique characteristics that would be helpful in the lawsuit.
If you cannot be a witness, please tell a friend who you think might be interested.
— If you are interested in becoming a witness You will describe your harm in a written affidavit which will be made public and you can contact me at stephen.kish.chair@adcs-adsc.ca See our website at www.adcs-adsc-ca
FOR THOSE CANADIANS WHO ALREADY VOLUNTEERED: Unless you have already been informed by me or by our legal team that you will not be a witness, there is still the possibility — or (for some) likelihood — that you will be asked to be a witness. I’m sorry but I cannot estimate the time it will take for our legal team to get back to you with their decision. This is because they need to “mesh” the characteristics of all of the necessary witnesses and testimonies with the actual detailed submission that contains the entirety of their evidence, which are all still evolving. Please be patient in our getting back to you with a decision. Thank you for your help.
The title of my post today — I am still asking…
CANADIAN FATCA IGA LITIGATION UPDATE:
We still need more IRS NON-COMPLIANT Canadian Witnesses with FATCA REPORTABLE (non-RRSP) ACCOUNTS > $US 50,000 — and there are just six months before the next turnover of private bank data
@Stephen Kish
Do we have a trial date, or are we waiting for more witnesses to come forward before that can be set?
Marie,
My answer is that Ginny, Gwen, and I are pleading for more Canadians to step up to the plate as witnesses.
By the way, at the moment I am trying to work out an ad (if we can afford it) in a small town newspaper on the Canadian side of the U.S. border — a request for “border babies” as witnesses.
Many many thanks to all those who have already volunteered.
@ Marie
We cannot file our court papers, let alone get a trial date until we have the requisite volunteer witnesses.
As I said previously, we are stalled until that happens.
I misjudged things. I thought the hard part would be raising the funds.
Stephen, count me in for a donation to the AD. Let Blaze know how and where to donate, and many thanks.
@Stephen
The whole FATCA thing is still being moved along mostly in secret, so I imagine that most of those who are affected are simply unaware that there is a looming problem for them.
Our best bet is to force the CRA to notify the people who’s account information was sent to the IRS. The catch-22 (and it’s an eye-roller) is that the gov argues that no one is complaining, but of course, none of the people who have been affected even know that their data was shipped off to a foreign government, so how can they complain?
We all know they are intentionally keeping things a secret for as long as possible while the trap is being set, so the main force of the strategy must be to somehow counter the secrecy and expose what’s going on. Forcing the CRA to notify people should be a top priority.
@Middle Finger
“Forcing the CRA to notify people should be a top priority.” I’m trying to get some action from Peter Julian’s office on this. I know my bank info was sent by one of my banks to the CRA, but the other bank said I had to ask the CRA, which in turn said I had to ask our pink flash-card wielding Revenue Minister about it. My Liberal MP’s office said the RM is not being forthcoming with the info, but I suspect I’m getting stone-walled now. I thought Mr Julian’s office might help, and am awaiting a response promised by his constituency office.
Middle,
I agree with you that part of our problem is that many affected Canadians are not aware of what their own Canadian government has in store for them.
For example, one of the witness volunteers told me today that when he recently explained to a politically savvy person the flip-flop of Mr. Trudeau on FATCA, the person had no understanding what he was talking about or of FATCA itself. When this was explained, she was “astounded” to hear what our Government has been up to.
Somehow though, we still need to find more witness volunteers amongst the knowing.
I see little likelihood that our Government will force CRA to notify (without being asked by the account holder) those who have been turned over. There is no upside for our Government or CRA to do this — would be too many complaints.
— By the way, thanks to the Canadian who just volunteered to be a witness and explain the harm.
@Stephen
I would think that if the RM won’t even respond to a direct request for info, the CRA won’t automatically notify us.
Great! Another witness!
Maybe a catchy ad, either in print or online, could start with:
“Seeking border babies and other witnesses to harm caused by FATCA”
“I have always wondered about that – whether or not a move to RBT would mean no more FBARS.”
Ethically and logically FBAR would remain for US residents, and FATCA would remain for accounts with US mailing addresses. Which of course means that FBAR and FATCA would be expanded to be as malicious as possible, since ethics and logic are unAmerican.
@Stephen
Yes, I know that the government and/or CRA (what’s the diff) will do whatever it can to make sure that those who are on their IRS hit list will remain in the dark. Obviously that last thing they want to see happen are affected people being made aware that their personal banking details are being sent off to a hostile foreign government with zero controls over what happens with it, it’s like sending your banking details off to a Nigerian scam artist, nothing good can happen from it.
Furthermore, there’s no oversight in place, there’s no way to know if the data is being collected and sent “legitimately” (it can never be legitimate, but I speak in terms of following the IGA, if that’s even possible). We have absolutely no idea if non-US tainted individuals are being caught up in this mess or not (of course they are), and we have no real idea what the data even looks like (what’s in there is left to the imagination). This is a very serious security issue for all Canadians to be greatly concerned about, it’s a huge security hole within the CRA to say the least, and it’s a major privacy breach as well – given the veil of secrecy and lack of meaningful oversight, we have no idea bad the situation is, we have no choice but to imagine the worse, it would be foolish not to.
Of course you know all of this already, but one would expect that the situation can be at least presented in a way that most ordinary Canadian’s can understand and be fearful of. Forget about this being a US tainted individuals problem, anyone can be caught up in this mess. We can talk about the potential for identify theft, banking and taxation records falling into criminal hands, whatever worse case scenario you can imagine is a legitimate possibility until there’s full transparency, proper oversight in place, and individuals being notified with full disclosure in advance of the data being sent.
Don’t you think we can use their own secrecy against them?
April 2, 2016 UPDATE: WE NEED MORE WITNESSES IN OUR CANADIAN FATCA IGA LAWSUIT:
IRS non-compliant, no meaningful history with U.S., and with reportable accounts >U.S.$ 50,000
Our own Lib MPs–or at least mine– don’t even seem to be aware that the Libs have flip flopped. Or she is just another Fibbing Lib.
Kate Young finally came out of hiding this week when I tweeted the Star article to one of her former colleagues at the local CTV station asking him to report on the flip flop and @KateYoungMP won’t meet with me.
(I also sent her an e-mail telling her she was as hypocritical as all the other Libs, etc., etc.)
So she called me. She said she wasn’t meeting with me because she didn’t have any new information to report. She said she understood the issue from our meeting and communications during the election. Kate also said she was waiting to see what direction the government would take before responding.
I told her (as I did in many e-mails) I wanted her to be a “strong voice” for me as the Prime Minister had directed his MPs. I also told her I did not appreciate learning from Elizabeth Thompson at iPolitics about the reversal instead of from Kate herself.
Kate seemed unaware of either the iPolitics or the Star articles (even though I had e-mailed and tweeted them to her earlier).
She said “I haven’t heard it myself.” I asked her if she was in Parliament when the Minister of National Revenue read from her little pink card.
She said “I haven’t had anyone say it to me.” I suggested she talk to her boss (Kate is Marc Garneau’s Parliamentary Secretary) and ask him why he went from calling FATCA “an attack on our privacy” and CRA “doing the dirty work” for the IRS.
I suggested she ask Emmanuel Dubourg, an accountant with an MBA and over 20 years working at CRA why he is silent as Parliamentary Secretary of National Revenue after calling #FATCA “dangerous” in an article he wrote for the National post.
Kate said she was aware of all of the comments the Liberals made in the material I had sent her. She said she knows this is “frustrating” for me. (Ya think?!?).
I pointed out to her that the “Child of the Charter” Minister of Justice is continuing to defend the lawsuit. Again, Kate seemed unaware of that even though I had copied Kate on two e-mails to Jody Wilson-Raybould.
Kate said she didn’t know what she could do. I replied “I know what you can do. You can be a strong voice. You can request Scott Brison to reintroduce the amendment to protect Canadian citizens and residents. You can advocate for all of your Liberal colleagues to vote for it. The NDP will support it. The Conservatives won’t.”
She asked me to send her the wording of the amendment (I had already done that twice before). I agreed to do it again.
When I spoke with Native Canadian shortly after I spoke with Kate, he offered to pick up print copies of all of my e-mails and drop them off to Kate.
So, I e-mailed Brison’s amendment.to Kate for the third time. I printed my many e-mails to her, the Star article and three of the iPolitics articles. Native delivered them yesterday afternoon. Kate was not available, but Native gave them to one of Kate’s assistants and spoke strongly about this as Native usually does. It seems the Assistant had no knowledge of any of this (Did nyone in her office read anything I sent?!?).
So, even though Kate actually spoke to me, it was “frustrating.”
She said she didn’t know what she could do.
Oh, for fucks sake!
Sorry. But Lynne’s comment was ‘frustrating’ to read.
Thanks for the report, Blaze.
MP Kate Young says that knows this is frustrating for you. MP Kate Young says she doesn’t know what she could do.
What did she say about what she had done, including studying the material that you sent to her, your government representative?
Can she really not see the complete flip-flop of her colleagues? Some of these people, Ms. Young included, without the ethics of standing at their word or seeing that others in the Liberal government have not are unbelievable and remind me of a child covering up and rationalizing one of their behaviours were caught in even though knowing it wrong.
Kate Young was waiting to see what direction the government would take before responding? Then will she have one of the little pink cards from which she can read the official line of the Liberal government?
Why did Kate Young run for a government office?
Seems you have to do half of this woman’s job for her, Blaze. Frustrating over and over again, Liberal government representative by Liberal government representative. And, they get away with it.
Thanks again, Blaze, and for your help in this, Native.
WestCoaster (and I and many others) know in our bones that George Carlin was right (WC’s comment in thread http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2016/03/30/us-passport-application-links-citizenship-statedept-to-taxation-ustreasury-to-enforce-taxation-based-citizenship/).
Our chance at changing things is through the Canadian courts. To have a shot of accomplishing what we think we must, we need the required persons to be witness to the harm this is doing to individuals and families. God help us.
I getting a similar response from my Liberal MP too, Blaze.
Let me paraphrase:
“I know it’s frustrating for you, but I have to toe the party line – whatever that is. But do keep in touch, because I enjoy hearing from my constituents. Have a nice day.”
Yes, THANK GOODNESS for the lawsuit.
@Lynne and NativeCanadian, You two are such an awesome team! Looking forward to the video.
@WhiteKat There is a delay in the protest because Native Canadian will be going away. Likely late April or early May. There is interest from Kate’s former television station in covering it. Kate was their anchor for over 20 years, including about 8 of the 10 years I did commentaries for them, so the reporters and editors know both of us.
The reporter I tweeted about Kate refusing to meet with me is the reporter who did the story on our Fourth of July bash in 2014.
In addition to what I posted about my conversation with Kate, I also told her the Liberal betray is worse than the Conservatives because the Cons never pretended to care about Canadian citizens, laws, Rights, Charter, Constitution or sovereignty.
I told her I know people who have contemplated suicide.
I told her I know of strained marriages.
I told her I know a woman who ended her ownership in her husband’s business because of FATCA.
I told her I know of stay at home mothers who have removed their names from joint accounts with their husbands.
I told her I know of a couple who have transferred all their assets and home to an adult child’s name.
I told her FATCA has set equality in marriages, particularly for women, back decades.
I told her Justin Trudeau could have done what Scott Brison said a Prime Minister with a good relationship with the U.S. should do. He should have told his new best friend Barack Obama he will not let him FATCA Canadian citizens, residents, banks and laws.
I told her convicted criminals have more Charter rights than a Canadian Cop of over 30 years.
I told her about other Border Babies and Accidental Americans
I told her “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian” is for convicted terrorists and criminals.
I told her a Canadian born in the U.S. isn’t a Canadian isn’t a Canadian isn’t a Canadian.
I told her a Liberal Hypocrite is a Hypocrite is a Hypocrite.
Kate told me she knows this is “frustrating” for me.
Kate told me she doesn’t know what she can do.
P.S. I also told Kate IRS admits it has an epidemic of identity theft with far less information than they will have about us,
I reminded her of the teenager right here in London Ontario who hacked CRA’s website a couple of years ago and stole personal financial date of about 800 people. I asked her if she understands the risk of a hacker getting information that will be provided under FATCA.
Kate said she knows this is “frustrating.”
@Blaze
Re women’s equality:
Why FATCA, Mr Trudeau?
“Because it’s 1916.”
Everyone:
For our lawsuit we need more of the harmed Canadians described above as witnesses — but they have to be special Canadians who are actually willing to file an affidavit — like Ginny and Gwen and the person I spoke to on the phone a few hours ago.
@WhiteKat LOL.
@Blaze
Trying to get through to our MPs is starting to remind me of the frustration one accidental American who has the “virtual hunger strike blog” is feeling when he’s sent dozens of letters to Obama and has gotten no other response other than to twice send him to a suicide prevention site.
Rather than responding to us in a helpful and constructive fashion, they’d rather get us some help for that frustration we’re feeling trying to get them to respond to us.
Big effing smoke screen.
@Blaze
I believe your Lol might have been directed at my comment, but I could be wrong.