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.
Ann #1,
Thanks for asking in my post a question about witnesses.
I can only ask generally for witness types and cannot publicly get into describing the witnesses who have already volunteered, or answering questions as specific as yours. However, in my post I do ask broadly for witnesses who “have experienced any other significant “FATCA” harm not mentioned above”.
My general answer is that any Canadian who feels that they have been harmed — and would be willing to submit an affidavit — should send me an email. It will be the litigators who will determine what is “significant” for litigation purposes.
Also, all should consider that in your “stories” our litigators might discover a harm that you might not consider that “important” but that the Arvay team considers “litigation-significant”.
I’m having a discussion with some lawyer type guy on Facebook about the importance of witnesses in the Canadian lawsuit still having US standing. He said it hurt the case in the states that some of the witnesses no longer had US citizenship. I don’t know how this factors in a Canadian lawsuit dealing with the constitutional and charter rights of Canadians. I would think it focusses more on Canadians having standing rather than US citizens here in Canada. After all, many former Americans are being negatively affected by the FATCA IGA in Canada.
@Stephen
How important is it that witnesses still have US citizenship? I’m having an argument with someone who claims that former Americans will hurt the case here in Canada, as witnesses who no longer had US citizenship hurt the Bopp case.
Dash re: “Arvay and team seem very obsessed these days with witnesses who have “reportable accounts”…. I realize that Arvay has the right to keep his strategy private but the consequences of that are that I don’t understand his strategy and it is hard to support him if I don’t understand his strategy….. Asking for the support of the public is inconsistent with playing your cards too close to the vest.”
To my non-legal mind it makes sense to have plaintiffs/ witnesses with reportable accounts for the simple reason that this is a lawsuit to defeat FATCA – a law designed to report financial accounts belonging to Canadians to the USA. Shouldn’t these Canadians be real live people with US reportable accounts or are they unicorns?
For those thinking about coming forward as a witness but are still scared, Mr. Marie came forward and spoke to one of the litigators. The litigator described each witness as a small piece of a larger puzzle. Yes, our names and some private information will be made public. Our entire financial live will not be on display for all the world to see, only a small piece relevant to this trial.
@WhiteKat
The problem I have with that strategy–if that is indeed the strategy Arvay is pursuing–is that it seems to imply that it is OK to treat US “persons” in Canada a “little bit” differently than everyone else in Canada is treated as long as that “different” treatment doesn’t include the seizure of big bank accounts. If we concede that point then I think we have already lost–so I certainly hope Arvay does NOT intend to concede that point.
Arvay seems to be saying that it is OK if the banks ask about US status and treat “US person” customers a bit differently than others as long as it doesn’t extend to a situation where the data is clearly being turned over. My position is quite a bit different. Yes, I’d agree that it is a problem if the bank/CRA turns the data over but the problem starts much earlier than that–the problem starts the moment the bank asks for different information from “US persons”. The problem, to be stopped, needs to be stopped at its source and I certainly hope that is the intention of the lawsuit.
If banks were asking people about, say, Chinese or Muslim status when they opened an account, people would be screaming bloody murder long before the bank account ever actually got reported to anyone–and rightly so. It shouldn’t be any different for “US persons”. A regime where it is OK to treat US persons differently if they have only have small bank accounts is unacceptable to me.
Basically I fear that Arvay is pursuing a strategy that would sacrifice Canadian sovereignty to protect the large bank accounts of individual Canadians. Such a strategy would be unacceptable to me. It has never been about the bank accounts for me but it is about Canadian sovereignty. If Canadian sovereignty is protected, then as a side effect individual bank accounts will also be protected. But the primary goal here should be to protect Canadian sovereignty, and if you start saying that it is only (or mainly) the people with large, reportable accounts who have suffered harm, I think that basic point is lost.
But–again–I could be wrong about the strategy Arvay is pursuing because I don’t know for sure. I’m just stating my concern.
@Dash1729 – Thank you for expressing what I have been feeling about FATCA since before (and certainly after) my renunciation 2 years ago. Is this not the crux of the Constitutional problem – – the discrimination itself (based on place of birth or parentage)?
@Dash, I don’t see the logical progression from Arvay’s determining that witnesses/plaintiffs who are non-compliant with reportable accounts (i.e. the people whom FATCA is actually targeting) are required to help ensure best odds for a successful lawsuit, to your suggestion that this “strategy” implies it is OK to treat ‘US persons’ differently.
You say, “the problem starts the moment the bank asks for different information from “US persons.” The problem, to be stopped, needs to be stopped at its source and I certainly hope that is the intention of the lawsuit.” The source of the problem is not the questions being asked by the bank. The source of the problem is the FATCA IGA. The intent of the lawsuit is to kill the FATCA IGA and ALL the discrimination associated with it including the “US person” interrogations by the banks.
Dash and LM, No one here is saying FATCA is not blatant discrimination.
At some point, you just gotta take people’s words for it, especially when those people want to see FATCA dead so much that they hired a top notch Canadian constitutional lawyer to do it, and are now telling us that we need witnesses who are non-compliant with reportable accounts for best chance of success. We all want to win this case, so instead of debating the “strategy” which we don’t know (and should not know for obvious reasons), why don’t we figure out how to find the unicorns…err….I mean ‘non-compliant’ Canadian US persons with reportable accounts who are able and willing to be witnesses in this very important, historic lawsuit?
“The US Person” is simply and completely a Trojan Horse that is used to confiscate money that belongs to Canadians and Canada’s people for their financial well being. If one has a US Spouse the financial life of the Canadians associated with that US Spouse, mother, father, child or otherwise associated at all financially is open to harm and confiscation by a criminal enterprise using the IGA as the horse brought into the country filled with US Trojan Horse entities to flood through all financial entities in Canada with the aim to fleece everyone and everything associated with that “US Person”.
If they cannot confiscate or otherwise steal that money they can and will impose FBAR fines and any other way they can to clean out Canadian’s bank accounts to be used by the IRS in any way they want, even to IRS employees feasting off the bounty. Passing on that bounty in many cases to illegal immigrants deliberately flooding the US right now. Setting them up with homes and jobs and welfare and health care.
In the US it is now common practice for citizens to be pulled over and fleeced with little to no excuse or probable cause. Small business bank accounts are being confiscated with NO excuse but accusations ,without foundation, means these small businesses, who regularly deposit small amounts under $10,000 are having their lives and businesses ruined by those accusations. Confiscation, also without want or warrant.
The IGA has made that criminal activity possible in Canada also without probable cause and a warrant.
It is a universal scam for money in any way they can get it, using an illegal entity called the IGA.
In the US as well as Canada , Constitutional and Charter rights have been violated seven ways to Sunday and it is about time it is stopped and stopped for good.
The Arvay team needs what they need. Let’s not question it, let’s just GIVE IT TO THEM so they can get on with litigation that is so necessary for the restoration of rights and the peace of mind for millions of people in the country who not only perceive and feel the danger but ARE in danger every single minute this outrage continues.
IF Canada can achieve this awful and daunting task, it will be the finger pulled from the dam that will flood the world with the right and the might that will thwart the will of domination.
@Dash1729
**If banks were asking people about, say, Chinese or Muslim status when they opened an account, people would be screaming bloody murder long before the bank account ever actually got reported to anyone**
This is in your face…. if u are asked what u were because they can see it… u knew u were being treated differently.
The US person… if u didn’t know anything… u would answer with the truth with no thought of why… In Canada… its use to be great that u were a *US Person* because it offered more choices then the *regular* canadians… Border towns have alot of US persons… people use to cross the border like they would cross the street… only after 9/11 did that change… Other then the ones who know about this now… why would anyone think it was a big deal to admit they are US persons?
@Marie, “Yes, our names and some private information will be made public. Our entire financial live will not be on display for all the world to see, only a small piece relevant to this trial”
That statement was very valuable.
@Dash, I agree with where you are going . I am an EU Citizen. The EU was built on the foundation of equality amongst all EU Citizens. FATCA and IGAs have cut that off at the knees.
ANYWHERE in the EU, the only question should be “Are you a EU Citizen and resident in the EU?” IF yes, there should be no question on birthplace, parents birthplace, religion, sexual preference!!!
I am now inclined to vote for BREXIT because the EU has thrown me as a EU Citizen under the bus, if they can not protect me on this fundimental basis what good are they.
You might find some people who will complain “Hey, what’s the big idea not including my financial information? I’m a Canadian just like they are, and you turned their info over.” (cf. Hey, why won’t they let me sit in the back of the bus, just because I’m White?)
Editorial – as published in bubblebustin’s local paper today:
Does a MORTGAGE larger than the equivalent of US$50,000 count as a reportable account?
Does a person who relinquished decades ago but didn’t get a CLN, for whom it is not yet clear if US tax citizenship has been reinstated retroactively, count as a victim?
@ Bubblebustin
Nice work getting your “Editorial Opinion” published. You said they had to pare it down to fit the space allotted but it still flows nicely and all the key points are there.
Re: The problem starts the moment the bank asks for different information from “US persons.”
Recent experience opening new account at a big five Canadian bank. Question: Do you have any citizenships other than Canadian? That is not a discriminatory question.
Answer “no” and … Sam’s not your uncle!
Great editorial!
@EmBee
I was also contacted by a reporter at the same paper who said he’d like to contact me in a few days – I’m assuming for an interview. He said he’d read my initial letter and commended me on my “clear and well-written explanation of the situation”. I had the opportunity to edited it from the 800 plus words it took for me to do what I thought was a decent explanation to the maximum 450, but preferred their editor do it as he would have a better eye for what would catch the reader’s attention. The title was also his choice, as it often is for submitted articles. He had a lot to work with, and yes, did a good job paring it down – although I would have changed a few words here and there had I been given the time and opportunity.
@usxcanada
Being someone who has another citizenship in addition to Canadian, my answer would be “why”, which could give them the opportunity to discriminate against me. Also, question should allow for a “I don’t know” answer.
This is still discrimination. They have no right to know if any other citizenship!!!
@ Bubblebustin ….Well done! Maybe someday we will actually get the chance to meet.
Bubblebustin,
In addition to your volunteering as a witness in our lawsuit (and making your contribution public), you now show readers of this site that it is also possible to convince a newspaper to publish an article focused on our need for more witnesses.
The title of the article is: “Can I get a witness” and the article clearly says: “What it needs are more witnesses — those who are willing to come forward…”
Thank you,