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.
“If Trump wins, and building his walls, dismantling NATO, making Japan and South Korea pay for US military expenses, and hacking off the Chinese, I think the other 81% will band together and finally put an end to the Petrodollar system.”
If we Japanese taxpayers paid enough for US military expenses to make the US’s expense of putting a soldier in Japan equal to the US’s expense of putting a soldier in the US, our payment to the US would go DOWN.
I do hope Trump gets a chance to build his walls. The rest of the world needs it. Let’s expropriate Trump’s real estate the same way he wants to expropriate Chinese owned factories.
Forgive me if this has been posted elsewhere on IBS “Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) summary – Enhanced Financial Account Information Reporting
Individual Returns Directorate, Assessment, Benefit, and Service Branch and International and Large Business Directorate, Compliance Programs Branch ”
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/gncy/prvcy/pia-efvp/pia-efair-eng.html .
I just read it courtesy of a post by Blaze at Maple Sandbox;
April 10, 2016
http://maplesandbox.ca/2016/fatca-privacy-assessment/
The link below will take you to a page at Our Windsor, an online newspaper for Windsor Ontario, where stories can be submitted. Anyone up for writing a piece?
http://www.ourwindsor.ca/user/login.aspx?returnurl=%2fuser%2fsubmit-story%2f
@badger
I can’t for the life of me find anything about the various levels mentioned in Blaze’s Maple Sandbox post, but in my search found some other interesting guidelines around the creation of Privacy Impact Assessments. There is no mandatory format the creation of a PIA has to follow, and institutions are allowed to tailor make their own to meet the guidelines set out by the government, and should undergo this four-part test once they’re determined to be controversial or intrusive.
2.1 Using the Four-Part Test of R. v. Oakes for Necessity and Proportionality
Highly visible and controversial government programs have recently underlined the importance of ensuring that the broader privacy risks and societal implications of some initiatives are carefully evaluated at the outset. The risks of certain government programs and initiatives should be measured and assessed in the context of their potential impact on our democratic society, our civil liberties and our fundamental human right to privacy as recognized in Canadian law, including the Privacy Act, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the case law interpreting them. The Privacy Act sets out fundamental rights of Canadians in their interactions with the federal state. The Supreme Court of Canada has recognized on numerous occasions that privacy interests are worthy of protection under the Charter and has further stated that the Privacy Act has quasi-constitutional status. Footnote 3
We expect federal entities undertaking PIAs for particularly intrusive or privacy-invasive initiatives or technologies to first demonstrate that the activity or program is necessary to achieve a specific and legitimate purpose, that it is likely to be effective in achieving that purpose, that the intrusion on privacy is proportional to the benefit to be derived, and that no other less privacy intrusive alternative would achieve the same purpose. To guide this analysis, we will ask government departments to answer the following four questions, which are based on the test used in R. v. OakesFootnote 4 to weigh reasonable limitations on rights and freedoms in a free and democratic society:
Is the measure demonstrably necessary to meet a specific need?
Is it likely to be effective in meeting that need?
Is the loss of privacy proportional to the need?
Is there a less privacy-invasive way of achieving the same end?
https://www.priv.gc.ca/information/pub/gd_exp_201103_e.asp#toc1
@badger
Re PIA summary, that reference to the flow of information either going north or south really irks the crap out of me, as it’s only a matter of direction which way the data flows – not to be impeded by such things as international border lines.
@Badger @Bubblebustin. I’m on a new mission.
I am submitting a new Access to Information request to CRA and to the Privacy Commissioner for the full Privacy Impact Assessment, the Privacy Commissioner’s recommendations to CRA and any other reports made to, from or about FATCA.
My prediction is they will delay as long as they can and redact as much information as they possibly can.
The Privacy Impact Assessment was not on the CRA website when I spoke to them a couple of weeks ago. It may be there now because of my verbal enquiry to the Access to Information office at CRA. Or it may be there because of Elizabeth Thompson’s article. Or it may be there because the Minister of Revenue and the Privacy Commissioner have been summoned to testify at Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee Thursday 8:45-10:45 a.m. ET.
ParlVu indicates this meeting will be broadcast on audio. I understand there are no cameras in the room where the Committee is meeting.
I spoke with Pierre-Luc Dusseault’s Assistant this morning. Daniel Blaikie is the NDP member of that Committee. He will not be attending and the NDP is trying to get Mr. Dusseault confirmed as a replacement for Mr. Blaikie.
I asked if it is possible for the meeting to be moved to a room with cameras so it will be broadcast on video. He will check into it, but it may be difficult on short notice.
@LM
I’ve just been notified that my LTE has been chosen for the main editorial this week in one of my community newspapers here on the Sunshine Coast, called the Local. It was twice as long as it was supposed to be in order to be accepted, so left it at the discretion of the editor what would remain. I don’t know what it will look like until it’s actually published, but I do know it will mention ADCS, a plea for witnesses and a link to the ADCS website. I’ll post here when it’s out on Thursday.
“My prediction is they will delay as long as they can and redact as much information as they possibly can.”
Well of course. How else would you expect them to protect their privacy?
I’m so pleased we have a new ally in Mr Dusseault, Blaze. Something has to be done soon though, ’cause we’re running out of parties.
Good luck in your new mission, Blaze. Maybe much of what we’ve done hasn’t yet been effective – but doing nothing guarantees we get nothing. Something’s gotta give one of theses days, and we’re blessed to have people like you and so many others here leading the charge when it finally does.
@bubblebustin, re the PIA, I note that they don’t acknowledge the impact of the Patriot Act, and Homeland Security and other US laws that would supercede any assurances the CRA or even the Privacy Commissioner might offer regarding the use of the data and how widely it can be disseminated.
I mention that here;
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/08/22/privacy-commissioners-information-office-says-dont-bug-us-in-disappointing-response-to-questions-about-canadian-privacy-rights/comment-page-2/#comment-6439217
and
here;
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/08/22/privacy-commissioners-information-office-says-dont-bug-us-in-disappointing-response-to-questions-about-canadian-privacy-rights/comment-page-2/#comment-6439258
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/08/22/privacy-commissioners-information-office-says-dont-bug-us-in-disappointing-response-to-questions-about-canadian-privacy-rights/comment-page-2/#comment-6439503
And what do the Canadian Privacy Commissioner and the CRA make of Prof. Cockfield’s comments about how US laws will take control over the IGA obtained data once it crosses into the US? He raised the privacy issues at the CCLA Privacy event based on the report that the Office of the Canadian Privacy Commissioner contracted him to write; Cockfield, Arthur J., FATCA and the Erosion of Canadian Taxpayer Privacy (April 1, 2014). Report to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, April 2014. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2433198 and in his joint submission to Parliament with Prof. Allison Christians; Christians, Allison and Cockfield, Arthur J., Submission to Finance Department on Implementation of FATCA in Canada (March 10, 2014). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2407264 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2407264 .
So very interesting when the Privacy Commissioner commissions a report on privacy, and then doesn’t apparently use or refer to it. For example, Prof. Cockfield says;
“As previously noted by Canadian policy reports from the Office of the Privacy Commission of British Columbia and other privacy commissions, any personal information about Canadians that is sent over the U.S. border may be accessed by U.S. authorities under the Patriot Act, without a warrant or notice.27”
footnote 27;
27 See David Loukedelis, “Privacy and the USA Patriot Act: Implications for British Columbia Public Sector Outsourcing” (October 2004), online: http://www.oipc.bc.ca/special-reports/1271.
And Prof. Cockfield makes clear that the info collected under the FATCA IGA goes beyond the information the CRA collects for its own Canadian tax assessment and collection purposes;
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
“You talked about the U.S. asking for information from U.S. citizens and you wondered about PIPEDA. I guess my question is, if the U.S. government is able to do that, doesn’t the CRA also do that, in essence, with Canadians? Does it not ask for the same kind of information?”
5:10 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Law, Queen’s University, As an Individual
Prof. Arthur Cockfield
“Certain information is collected by the CRA. Under domestic law, the banks have to send information, say on interest income, and they use that to calculate a Canadian taxpayer’s tax liability, but the IGA changes that regime, as I mentioned in my opening remarks. Now, a foreign government will access—as Ms. Swanson also addressed—the total quantum of an account, as well as account withdrawals and deposits. Nowhere in Canadian law do we have that information shared with our government, so this is a big change.”
https://openparliament.ca/committees/finance/41-2/34/dave-van-kesteren-12/
Would be interesting to establish what those PIA levels mean, and how the levels were assignedin the “Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) summary – Enhanced Financial Account Information Reporting
Individual Returns Directorate, Assessment, Benefit, and Service Branch and International and Large Business Directorate, Compliance Programs Branch ”
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/gncy/prvcy/pia-efvp/pia-efair-eng.html . re the FATCA IGA.
@Blaze, thanks for pursuing this. I think the CRA, Finance, Justice Dept and Privacy Commissioner are hiding relevant information from the Canadian taxpayers and voters they are sworn to serve and protect.
And re why that PIA info wasn’t posted before, I am wondering if they are trying to remediate after the fact by posting it and hoping no-one will notice or be able to prove that it wasn’t there all along.
Could this be the determinant of the levels?
See this link and look down for the Section II heading;
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pol/doc-eng.aspx?id=18308
“Section II-Risk Area Identification and Categorization
The core PIA must include a completed risk identification and categorization section as outlined below. To have consistent risk categories and risk measurement across government institutions, standardized risk areas (itemized below) and a common risk scale are to be maintained as the basis for risk analysis.
The numbered risk scale is presented in an ascending order: the first level (1) represents the lowest level of potential risk for the risk area; the fourth level (4) represents the highest level of potential risk for the given risk area.
The initial step of the analysis consists of evaluating each risk area independently. The second step consists of grouping the individual results to determine if a more in depth analysis is required. The greater the number of risk areas identified as level 3 or 4, the more likely it is that specific risk areas will need to be addressed in a more comprehensive manner.
a) Type of program or activity Risk scale
– Program or activity that does NOT involve a decision about an identifiable individual 1
– Administration of program or activity and services 2
– Compliance or regulatory investigations and enforcement 3
– Criminal investigation and enforcement or national security 4
b) Type of personal information involved and context Risk scale
– Only personal information, with no contextual sensitivities, collected directly from the individual or provided with the consent of the individual for disclosure under an authorized program. 1
– Personal information, with no contextual sensitivities after the time of collection, provided by the individual with consent to also use personal information held by another source. 2
– Social Insurance Number, medical, financial or other sensitive personal information or the context surrounding the personal information is sensitive; personal information of minors or of legally incompetent individuals or involving a representative acting on behalf of the individual. 3
– Sensitive personal information, including detailed profiles, allegations or suspicions and bodily samples, or the context surrounding the personal information is particularly sensitive. 4
c) Program or activity partners and private sector involvement Risk scale
– Within the institution (among one or more programs within the same institution) 1
– With other government institutions 2
– With other institutions or a combination of federal, provincial or territorial, and municipal governments 3
– Private sector organizations, international organizations or foreign governments 4
d) Duration of the program or activity Risk scale
– One-time program or activity 1
– Short-term program or activity 2
– Long-term program or activity 3
e) Program population Risk scale
– The program’s use of personal information for internal administrative purposes affects certain employees. 1
– The program’s use of personal information for internal administrative purposes affects all employees. 2
– The program’s use of personal information for external administrative purposes affects certain individuals. 3
– The program’s use of personal information for external administrative purposes affects all individuals. 4
f) Technology and privacy
– Does the new or substantially modified program or activity involve implementation of a new electronic system or the use of a new application or software, including collaborative software (or groupware), to support the program or activity in terms of the creation, collection or handling of personal information?
– Does the new or substantially modified program or activity require any modifications to information technology (IT) legacy systems?
Specific technological issues and privacy
– Does the new or substantially modified program or activity involve implementation of new technologies or one or more of the following activities:
enhanced identification methods;
surveillance; or
automated personal information analysis, personal information matching and knowledge discovery techniques?
A YES response indicates the potential for privacy concerns and risks, which will require consideration and, if necessary, mitigation.
g) Personal information transmission Risk scale
– The personal information is used within a closed system (i.e., no connections to the Internet, Intranet or any other system and the circulation of hardcopy documents is controlled). 1
– The personal information is used in a system that has connections to at least one other system. 2
– The personal information is transferred to a portable device (i.e., USB key, diskette, laptop computer), transferred to a different medium or is printed. 3
– The personal information is transmitted using wireless technologies. 4
h) Potential risk that in the event of a privacy breach, there will be an impact on the individual or employee.
i) Potential risk that in the event of a privacy breach, there will be an impact on the institution.
Note: For additional guidance on items h) and i), government institutions can refer to the Guidelines for Privacy Breaches.
In the case of a multi-institutional PIA, each government institution involved is, at a minimum, responsible for completing items b), c), f), g), h) and i), whereas the lead government institution is responsible for completing items a), d) and e).”
Just had a conversation with the constituency office assistant of my MP, Chrystia Freeland. He advised that I/we send letters of personal impact and potential impact to Stephan Dion, adding that this is a treaty matter and External Affairs deals with treaties. He also said that the MP’s office would lobby on my behalf. Are there any other Brockers in the University Rosedale riding who can add their own personal story to mine? He seemed to think that the personal stories would be the most impactful. My plan is to take my submission to the constituency office and then let them start their lobbying effort.
@No Name says,
this is an interesting past article that speculates (without much real basis) on Freeland re the issue of FATCA;
http://www.macleans.ca/economy/business/on-being-canadian-and-how-freeland-could-have-responded-to-mcquaig/
@NoName I wrote to Mr. Dion the day he was appointed Minister of Global Affairs. He took “the liberty of passing my concerns to Minister of Finance” Bill Morneau. So did Scott Brison, President of Treasury Board and my own MP.
Bill Morneau is silent. Justice Minister, Revenue Minister and several others ignored me. So did “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian” Prime Minister.
They are all playing the Pass the FATCA Game.
Is anyone in Morneau’s riding?
Thanks, Blaze. I will take that information to Freelands office today. These guys need to be pushed.
@badger
Wow. Your discovery could be the correct resource. Who’s to know how many layers of levels exist? All I know is that some were apparently cut through to get the FATCA IGA passed. Or so it seems.
@No Name
My MP is the Parliamentary Secretary to Dion, and is well aware of the situation. So far, however, she’s done NOTHING for me – in spite of my pushing her.
Three of us who wrote a group letter to Chrystia Freeland four months ago just received a reply yesterday. It said, “While the Minister appreciates your comments, the issue you raise falls within the purview of the Honourable Bill Morneau, Minister of Finance. I have therefore taken the liberty of forwarding a copy of your correspondence to his office.” Freeland is not interested.
@Blaze: you may wish to contact the Clerk of the committee. He might have more of a hand in organizing logistics such as room changes. Michel Marcotte (613-992-1240)
I used to work in that world but unfortunately 151 Sparks was used after I started working elsewhere, so I can’t speak to the amenities there (ie. cameras).
@ Blaze – Bill Morneau represents Toronto Centre. Surely there are some Brockers from that riding (or a Brocker that has a friend in that riding so they can tag along on a meeting?
After 4 months, I too got a reply mentioning that the plea in the letter was sent on to Bill Morneau – – the letter was sent to Chrystia Freeland, Minister of International Trade. I think that while the range of male/female, new and not so new cabinet ministers was a fine idea that isn’t working; many of these folks are over their head and more than willing to pass along a problem unless it is front and center in the media.
Just got back from Freeland’s constituency office. These MPs are supposed to respond either to their portfolio or their constituency. Any sway I might ever have with Freeland will be as a constituent; any non-constituent’s correspondence will be forwarded, apparently to Morneau. So I think I will start camping out in her office. The assistants are knowledgeable about the file, sympathetic, and very new on the job (6 days!). So, please, any University Rosedale people who have a story to tell, let’s blast the office with pathetic tales of woe. There are probably thousands of people in this riding who are caught up in this mess and need their MP to advocate for them. Speak up! If any of you would like to meet or exchange ideas, please feel free to ask the admins for my email. I live just up the block from her constituency office. We can march there together!
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/world/europe/eu-visas-us-canada.html?_r=0
The EU threatens the US/Canada with visas, but FATCA is OK. Perhaps someone should write the Commissioner listed in the article.
@Don …. so the State Department is of the view that it is US law that must prevail.
From the top of this thread….
“Sure — you can write letters to Liberal politicians who care not a fig about your problems — OR you can be a witness and write up a short affidavit for your lawsuit or help me find witnesses. Which do you think has the better chance of success?” Stephen Kish
Marie and others, hounding and hopefully shaming my MP is my duty and privilege as a Canadian citizen. It will cost me nothing. Putting my name to an affidavit as a witness to our charter challenge would be an honour, but it would cost me a lifetime’s worth of savings. My relinquishment was denied. I cannot renounce because I am a covered expatriot. I have been a widow for over two decades and I live off the income earned by the money I have saved. If my Canadian FIs freeze or close down my accounts, I am totally screwed. It’s all that I have. My point is that for some of us it is not a question of which strategy we choose to take, but rather which one we are able to take. As for the rhetorical question, “Which do you think has a better chance of success?”, right about now I am starting to think that neither will succeed. This whole FATCA file is so wrong, so blatantly descriminatory. The fact that two different governments have refused to address the issues in any way whatsoever makes me think that there is an alternate reality at work out there that I know nothing about. Feeling a bit like Alice.
@Marie, I’m feeling deja vu. Haven’t we tried the first approach before? Many times. Actually it’s been more like the movie ‘Groundhog Day’ than deja vu.
@NoName, Your passion is admirable. And your efforts not a waste of time as long as you don’t expect to get much more than an opportunity to maybe educate your MP a bit , and release some built up tension. A more informed MP won’t get you what you want. An opportunity to sue the government may get you what you want.