CTV News “Andrew Scheer has dual Canadian-U.S. citizenship, party confirms”
TORONTO — Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer has dual Canadian-U.S. citizenship but is in the process of renouncing his American citizenship, a spokesperson has confirmed to CTV News.
The Globe and Mail first reported on Scheer’s dual citizenship Thursday.
Once Mr. Scheer became leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, he decided he would renounce his U.S. citizenship before the election,” the leader’s spokesperson Brock Harrison told CTV News in an email.
“In August, he informed the United States government that he was renouncing his citizenship. He has submitted his paperwork and is currently waiting for confirmation from the embassy that he is no longer a dual-citizen.”
Harrison said Scheer and his sisters received U.S. passports as children through one of their parents. He said Scheer has not renewed his American passport as an adult, and has not voted in any U.S. elections.
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Thanks to Calgary411 for posting this on the Media thread. There’s been a lot of discussion on this, so I’ve created a separate post for it and moved the comments here.
Literally the only reason any Canadian dual would register for Selective Service is if they moved to the US before turning 26 and applied for federal student loans or one of a few other types of benefit. Otherwise, I imagine you could count on one hand the number of lunatics who would feel duty-bound to obey some very not-well-publicized US law. Certainly I was utterly unaware prior to arriving in the US as a graduate student at the age of 25, when I had to hastily register before I could collect a loan cheque.
So Scheer might well be lying about the draft, but it’s not like anyone could prove otherwise.
As for the taxes, does it really matter when he started filing? The interesting part will be how much lying and evasion and general shiftiness this produces. And why on earth did he wait this long to renounce?
Oops, apparently he registered at 18, I read via the links above. What a nutcase. Who would do such a thing? I’m even less likely to vote for him now.
From the CBC article:
Moron. Failure to present as a US citizen cannot be grounds for inadmissibility. If CBP believes you to be a US citizen, they *must* admit you. If they don’t believe you to be a US citizen, they can find other reasons to not admit you, but failure to declare US citizenship cannot be that reason.
I wonder if he has (or once had) signature authority over any Conservative Party or Parliamentary accounts and, if so, whether he dutifully reported them to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (AKA FBAR) as required by US law?
Does he have any TFSAs or RESPs and, if so, did he file all the IRS forms for those accounts? Or did he make a mistake and is now guilty of “form crime”?
Does his bank know he is a US citizen (if they didn’t, they certainly do now) and have they handed all his financial information over to the CRA for transmission to the IRS? (He probably doesn’t know the answer to this one because they won’t tell him.)
I wonder what he thinks about having to fork over $2350 US to make this cl*sterf*ck go away?
Like I said, there are so many fun questions……I’m sure they’re scrambling at Conservative headquarters to try to get ahead of this one. Its virtually guaranteed they will lie about it and those lies will then be discovered. Whatever you think of the guy this all looks bad and demonstrates a total lack of planning and political savvy. Back in the Harper days the Conservatives caved and inflicted this crap upon us and now they get to wear it….payback’s a bitch, isn’t it.
“Ron Henderson” Correct regarding CBP, and it is not about belief, The terminal the Agents view at their stations displays everything the “Five Eyes” has on that individual. Same for Canada, If I show up at the border, they also know am Canadian, born in Canada.
“maz57” while agreeing with your post completely, am afraid “Sheer” may be in a separate class, as I believe he is being supported by US Interests, (Recent Canadian Visit from Pence) and for his efforts, they would forgive the FINCEN violations unlike for the rest of us normal people.
Thanks, Pacifica and Calgary for the OP.
Slipperier and slipperier. From the CBC article:
When asked Friday about his U.S. passport, Scheer said he couldn’t recall when he last used the American travel document.
“I would have to go back and look,” he said. “I have never needed my passport as an adult.”
That’s changed a bit from yesterday when he supposedly claimed that he never renewed the US passport obtained by his father for him when he was a child.
The CBC article also says he’s travelled to the US since becoming Conservative leader. Obviously Border Patrol is now aware of his citizenship status if they weren’t before. So, assuming , as it certainly appears, that he’s only just now started his renunciation process, it could be months before he loses US citizenship. Will he get one of those stern warnings to get a US passport or else?
Why would he go to the trouble of registering for the draft and filing taxes but not getting a passport. Especially when his two sisters live in the US and he no doubt travels there frequently.
What kind of leverage might the US have over him because of tax filings, FBARs, and bank or investment accounts?
@ Maya
How would he know of the Passport rule. I know many dual Japanese American citizens born in the US who do not know and do not believe it when you tell them. Met the latest such person six months ago.
Brockers know this stuff, but how many are there. Most of the world is still completely in the dark or worse, believe it is only to catch the 1%ers who knowingly break tax and reporting laws. Therefore anyone caught up in in deserve it.
Nobody knows, except for the very few here and at other blogs on the subject. How many? Given the number of USCs living abroad, I’d bet it’s less than 1%.
I don’t believe for a minute that he has been filing tax forms with IRS. If he was so dutiful he would have not kept his passport a secret. I’ll believe it when IRS confirms it.
I wonder if he got some information about the complications of Canadians living in the US, and vice versa, from his brother in law Jon Ryan, who recently returned home to Regina from Seattle with his American wife. I don’t know if either of them had become dual citizens, but they might have discussed the possibilities with AS.
@Maz57
The questions you ask may very well be why he is being so cagey answering questions about his honoring his USC obligations. He like the rest of us probably does not want to give the US any info that they may use againzt him before he is free of them.
I was interrupted while typing my last comment. Jon Ryan is a kicker with the CFL team Saskatchewan Roughriders.
BBC News, US and Canada: “Could an American be Canada’s next prime minister?”
…Canada has no such law (Australia forbids anyone holding citizenship of another country from running for parliament), but that hasn’t stopped politicians from using an opponent’s dual citizenship against them in the past, including Mr Scheer, who attacked governor general appointee Michaelle Jean in 2005 for having dual citizenship.
“I have a few quick questions for anyone who thinks that Michaelle Jean is a good choice to be our next GG,” he wrote in a blog post.
“Does it bother you that she is a dual citizen (France and Canada)? Would it bother you if instead of French citizenship, she held US citizenship?”
That criticism has left Mr Scheer himself open to attack, says political scientists Paul Hamilton, who teaches at Brock University.
“It seems odd that 15 years ago he was critical of this but never once revealed that he was a dual citizen,” he says.
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@stephen arvay
Them there border terminals can’t be too sophisticated. I had the “you must use a US passport” lecture once and have continued using my Canadian passport with US birthplace ever since, at least half a dozen times, without anyone raising an eyebrow.
“Them there border terminals” are probably quite sophisticated but they are only as good as the guys sitting in front of them. One time years ago when I was entering using my US passport, the guy started grilling me because he suspected I might be going down there looking for work. Duh….
Andrew Coyne argues against dual citizenship, calls Andrew Scheer a ‘flaming hypocrite’:
https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/election-2019/andrew-coyne-you-cant-be-leader-of-one-country-and-pledge-allegiance-to-another
The point Andrew Coyne missed (or chose to gloss over) is that Scheer didn’t seek out US citizenship or pledge allegiance to the USA. Far from it; it was “gifted” to him by his father. Apparently Pops did the registration of birth abroad, applied for passports for all the kiddies, and, to add insult to the injury, even signed the kid up for the draft. Thanks Dad….
But Scheer doesn’t seem to have opposed any of this, rather he was content to leave it all simmering in the background. Once he got into politics he should have known it was a time bomb that would eventually blow up in his face and should have taken steps to get rid of that US citizenship. (It would have cost him far less in terms of both money and trouble if he had done it years ago)
If his dad hadn’t been so keen to sign all the kids up, Scheer would be exactly like many other Canadians who have a US citizen parent, are entitled to US citizenship, but have never exercised the option. Nobody would have ever noticed or cared that he had a US parent. Now Scheer and his campaign are scrambling to fix a problem that should never have been allowed to develop in the first place. “Nobody ever asked me” is the dumbest response I’ve heard from a politician in a long time.
Too dumb to be P.M. That makes two of them. What to do?
Yup, that’s a serious problem, alright. Too bad the ballot won’t include a box for “None of the above”.
Yeah, not surprisingly, Coyne missed the nuance of birthright dual citizenship. (Countries requiring renunciation of previous citizenship upon naturalization are not uncommon, and one can debate the merits of such a policy, but it would not apply here.) When you try to enforce a policy preventing politicians from having dual citizenship, as in Australia, the result is chaos because people may literally be unaware of other birthright citizenships. It’s tricky. Arguments about loyalty don’t really work in these cases either.
In political terms, however – ouch. Scheer just looks dumb, dumb, dumb on this one. Hypocritical in light of past comments and/or quietly keeping it in his back pocket in case he needs a new job later in life.
@Portland
If you feel strongly about FATCA, you can’t vote Liberal or Conservative anyway. Quality of leadership doesn’t really matter in either case. It’s either green or orange at this point, or nutty fringe parties.
And what is Scheer’s position on FATCA? Probably would repeat the well rehearsed and now well worn CON and GLIB line that Canada had no choice, and had to think first and foremost of the wellbeing (read US sited expansions, interests and profits) of Canadian banks and financiers (rather than the Charter and human rights of Canadian citizens, residents and taxpayers on sovereign Canadian soil).
I wonder if he ever said anything on record about it back before the IGA was signed.
https://twitter.com/AndrewScheer/status/1064315317478862848