Meet with your Member of Parliament – Talking Points & Reports

33 thoughts on “Meet with your Member of Parliament – Talking Points & Reports”

1. Thank so much for creating these resources @LM!

   Thanks @pacifica for posting this.
   : )

2. Another loud “Thanks so much” to Pacifica for posting these. The hope is that others here will gird their loins and go meet their MP (with notes in hand to leave on their desk with strong encouragement that they actually read this information and take a look at the links – – info they certainly are not getting in Parliament or in the news).

   My MP appointment is tomorrow late afternoon and, as I hope others will, I’ll post afterwards about this meeting at the local constituency office – – to share what went well (and what did not, hopefully not much), what was of most interest to my newbie (Liberal) MP, what I was able to get her to agree to do, etc. Thanks to the many Brockers who last week provided various suggestions for these prep-notes; this outline, of course, will need additional updates as new information and events arise (like, maybe the Minister of Finance will apologize to 155,000 Canadians for being so careless about their privacy? We can all dream…….LOL)

3. This will be very helpful to others for future meetings with their MPs. Thanks so much, LM, and for providing this post, Pacifica.

   You are going into your meeting well prepared, LM. Stay strong and know you are so right in asking all your questions that need clear answers. Does the Canadian government / the Canadian Parliament speak for Canada and all Canadians or does the US Congress?

4. @ LM
   I will now think of you as the Shadow Raider of the North. Good luck tomorrow!

5. Thanks for this, LM (and Pacifica). By coincidence we are meeting with our MP in Australia tomorrow. I’ll be going through your document tonight to see whether we’ve missed anything in our list. Our meeting is the result of a letter we sent last month ( posted in the Fatca and Australia thread), and our plan is to basically follow the outline of that letter in our meeting tomorrow.

6. @ Karen
   Good luck to you too! With that well crafted letter and your determination all should go well.

7. Thank you, Karen! I’ve added a link to your letter in the above post.
   Best wishes to you and LM tomorrow! Really looking forward to hearing about your meetings.

8. @Karen – Given what you have covered in your letter, it appears you too have covered all the points. Here’s hoping your meeting also goes well and do let us know afterwards.

9. Karen,

   Best of luck in the meeting with your Australian MP tomorrow!

10. Our main objective is to ensure that members of Parliament and the Senate are aware of this issue and the costs of US exceptionalism to both the individuals affected and the country as a whole. We would welcome your advice on how best to achieve this goal.

    @Karen, as you know I favour a harder hitting style. If the approach is “what should be done” then more likely nothing.

    Perhaps you may ready a plan B if you think you need it. Instigation of a Parliamentary Enquiry of both the Australian-US Tax Treaty and Australian FATCA IGA, as WHEN Parliament passed these there was no sufficient impact statement on Australian residents who may be adversely affected – they were misleadingly presented to Parliament as “all good” so then no reason to not adapt them.

    Even today the ATO provides information on their website that tax treaties “prevent double taxation”, without a footnote as to the Australian-US tax treaty. There clearly are significant areas of double taxation via tax treaty gaps such as US taxation of Australian Superannuation for Australian residents. Thus it appears that even the ATO does not grasp the taxation implications and existence of tax treaty gaps.

11. @LM That is quite a letter. I would suggest the Parliamentary Inquiry route in Canada. 1 million + Canadians the US designates as US persons, then Parliament should have a very clear idea of the US tax and compliance implications extraterritoriality imposed on Canada. It is all legal under Canadian laws as the Canadian – US tax treaty does not say otherwise. A tax treaty revision is needed to “prevent double taxation, and prevent extraterritorial US taxation.” Revision of the FATCA IGA (to perhaps only include nonresident US person accounts) is necessary to remove assistance by the Canadian Government to the US to impose US extraterritorial tax and compliance on Canadians. Prior to the treaty revisions a Parliamentary Inquiry may gather the facts.

    FATCA and Privacy. It is really about US citizenship based taxation – what other use would this data be to the US? And only until CBT implications are brought into the picture will the injustices become more clear.

    FATCA is not about exchange. In the US banks are not required to sort through their client lists and identify all Canadian persons. They are not required to change their databases and new account procedures to require under penalty of perjury answer to the question are you a Canadian person. Thus the US does not have the reciprocal information to reciprocate.

    As the basis and understanding of FATCA is an exchange, Canada may withold FATCA information until that point when the US is ready to reciprocate like for like information.

12. @All,
    With your help and encouragement, I was very well prepared to meet my newbie MP this afternoon (and her local associate, tho he may also be with her in Ottawa, I don’t know). I feel so fortunate to have had an hour to share the massive range of background and issues RE FATCA in Canada. Even with all my prep-notes and hand-outs (all of which I happily left for her to review), it definitely took that long to explain everything.

    Fortunately, my MP (who was, in an earlier life, a lawyer and, in another more recent life, a Catholic Chaplain) was super at listening. I (justifiably) played the “hard of hearing” card, mentioning that only one ear was available today (due to wax buildup) and the other had a hearing aid (totally the truth); they both were most respectful of my disability limitations and needs. They both took copious notes and I saw lots of horrified/disbelieving facial expressions, indicating that they were “getting it”. They looked over the materials I brought (see “Talking Points” and “Links related to Talking Points ” above) and the MP commented that she was quite appreciative of my bringing in so much data to assist her with understanding the problem.

    When asked, she said she knew no one who might be identified as a “US Person”. But she did know people who had been born outside of Canada and agreed that they probably wouldn’t like having their former country coming after them for back tax money. I discussed the US being only one of 2 countries with CBT, the other being Eritrea [and Canada threw out the Ambassador to that country for trying to gather the 2% diaspora tax in Canada plus Eritrea got their knuckles wrapped in the UN for holding this policy] but that Canada folded for the US.

    Empahsizing that I am no longer a US Citizen, she said she was impressed that I was still so strong in advocating for this problem. I said, I came to Canada in 1969, became a citizen in the mid 1990s, decide to give up my US citizenship and live in the country I had come to love, but FATCA has cut into the legal basis of Canada, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and why should a USP who has lived here for 10 or 20 or 40 years have less rights than one of the new Syrian refugees?

    I talked about there being almost as many USP as there are Native Canadians, but they have their own Minister to monitor and manage their concerns. I talked about how long it was going to take anyone (starting today) to get an appointment at the US Consulate/Embassy and how much this now costs (and the Canadian renunciation price is only $100 and can be done by mail) and how not everyone lives as close as I do to a consulate (think northern Saskatchewan).

    I told her that the federal trial in August 2015 was ONLY to see if we could establish a “stay” on the FATCA information that was to be sent in September, 2015, and that the ruling in that case should not be deemed as a dismissal of the non-Constitutionality of the IGA (that our case still will be heard in 2016 – – and that there is a Federal anti-FATCA case being heard in the US). I talked about how the newspapers and TV reports have mostly been from the position of the “compliance industry”, and that they have a heavy vested interest with lots to gain with FATCA being instituted.

    I talked about how the IGAs are NOT treaties and how FATCA was tacked onto another bill and never discussed in Congress (she really cringed at that one), and how other countries were beginning to question their agreement to FATCA. I talked about non-citizen spouses and community organizations having their info going to the IRS, the poor level of safety of information sent to the IRS, and the fact that this information IS NOT private to the IRS once sent (reading from the Carl Levin document.

    The fact that the FATCA IGA is up for review in December was mentioned, but I wanted to know now why the Liberals have turned their back on us/ betrayed this community, given what was said before the election – – even by JT.

    My MP said she would immerse herself in the material I brought and, since parliament does not reconvene until April 11, would need 3-4 weeks before she could get back to me. Frankly, while I might have liked an update sooner, I would rather she do the due dillegance and approach other MPs with a strong knowledgeable and citizen-supportive voice. I even told her (truthfully) that one of the reasons I voted for her (and not the NDP candidate here) is that she presented as a very organized, clear, detail-person whose focus was defending the citizen and was up for the often not-so-simple-or-comfortable Ottawa politics. We left on what I think was very good terms. (I’m so glad I did not get angry or flustered or frightened – – the preparation certainly helped.)

    Once home, I took a look at my emails and immediately was presented with today’s National Post article with interview by Gwen. (http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/marni-soupcoff-liberals-flip-flop-on-privacy-rights) As this so perfectly covered a number of the things we had discussed during that hour meeting, as part of my thank you note to my MP, I included a link to this relevant and absolutely current article, asking her to read this one too (and promising her that I would not send anything else for her to read until she asks for more information).

    Thank you, all of you Brockers, for helping to make this meeting successful. I can’t promise that she will conquer the problem, but I do think she will be a real advocate and ask serious questions; and part of that was coming fully prepared. I urge all those in Canada to make these issues known through a meeting with YOUR MP. That is what they were elected for – – to fight for their citizens. Go gird your loins if necessary, but don’t wait too long – we need all the support we can get and the Liberals are in for the long haul……

13. PS – Not mentioned above, the fact of NO RECIPROCITY was strongly covered and I urged her to get someone in the Government to talk with parallel folks in other governments who are in the process of considering dumping FATCA rather than to think that this was only Canada standing up to the US.

14. LM,

    Thanks so much for the report of your meeting with your MP. You did very well with all the advance preparation that you shared so any of us can do the same. My MP is a Conservative. I have been trying to get a meeting with one of the two Liberal MPs elected in Calgary, with yet no success. On reading your report, I will again try to obtain his time. I bet you feel wonderful for this awareness you’ve passed to your Liberal MP — congratulations on the big step you’ve taken.

15. @ Calgary
    Thanks for the comment – – yes, I feel very good about the MP meeting and look forward to hearing back from her. I strongly believe she will, if nothing else, be straight with me.

    I just checked on the “Take Action – Spread the Word on Kijiji, Twitter, Facebook, Etc.” page and found no one has posted there for a few months so I’m posting here that I just put up an ad on my local Kijiji for witnesses (mentioning it here with the hope that maybe others will do so too). Every attempt may help……

    As a sample, you can see my ad at http://www.kijiji.ca/v-volunteers/hamilton/us-persons-willing-to-testify-about-fatca-harm/1151794018?src=topAdSearch

16. Bravo LM! Your meet-up really seems to have gone very well. When Pierre-Luc Dusseault took his position in opposition he had to bring himself up to speed on FATCA and he did it … so can your Liberal MP. You’ve given her ample information and many compelling reasons to get going on this issue and your assessment of her character makes me hopeful that she will.

    I hope Karen’s Australian MP meet-up went well too.

17. Thanks for everyone’s words of encouragement.

    I should start out by acknowledging that the letter linked above was joint work – my husband and I are both US-tainted and have been working on this together. We both went to the meeting with our MP this morning.

    The meeting went well; it took about half an hour. Our MP was particularly concerned about the privacy implications of FATCA and asked us to provide him more information on that aspect of the problem. He has other constituents who are US-tainted and we have met with him once before, so he is familiar with the issues. As a result of our meeting today, he will be writing to the Treasurer, with copies to the Foreign Minister and the Attorney General raising the issues in our letter and asking these specific questions about the data sent to the IRS last September:

    Questions for the ATO regarding FATCA data sent in September 2015
    In September 2015 the ATO sent information on 30,000 accounts to the IRS under FATCA. We would like the ATO to answer the following questions publicly:
    • What proportion of the accounts (by number and value) were accounts of Australian residents?
    • What proportion of the accounts (by number and value) were individual, corporate, or trust accounts?
    • Were the account holders whose data was sent to the IRS notified either by their financial institution or the ATO?
    • Did the ATO simply pass on the data provided by financial institutions, or was additional information added (such as by matching tax file numbers of reported accounts to other data held by the ATO)?
    • What guarantees can the ATO provide regarding the security of data sent to the IRS?
    • How much did it cost the ATO to compile the information sent under FATCA?
    • Did the ATO receive data from Australian financial institutions that it would not have otherwise collected? If so, will it use that data for any purpose other than sending it on to the IRS under FATCA?
    • Has the ATO received any information from the IRS on US accounts of Australian residents under FATCA?

    Given the current political circus over here, it will probably be months before we get a reply.

    JC – I did raise the issue of the ATO website’s incorrect information regarding the tax treaty. This will be included in the letter.

18. Thanks for that report, Karen. You and your husband definitely seem to have budged your MP into further action (i.e. the letters to other officials). I hope the wait for responses is much less than you anticipate though.

19. Embee

    The federal budget was expected to be delivered on 10 May and the PM last week moved it up to 3 May. As our MP said this morning, the Treasurer probably has his hands full at the moment. I don’t expect a reply until after the budget is delivered. And … if the election is called for 2 July, who knows when we’ll get a reply.

20. LM –

    I do think she will be a real advocate and ask serious questions

    Your posts are among the ones I tend to read rather than skim or skip. Three or four years ago now I spent an hour with my MP on the US-person-in-Canada issue. Lots of understanding and lots of sympathy. It’s still the same MP. I still like the MP – as far as MPs go.

    The useful outcome was obtaining further empirical evidence on how time can be wasted in trying to plow statist ground.

    Tonight I hope I dream about your MP putting a bug in Justin’s ear. Like maybe an earwig.
     

21. @LM Very through.

    @Karen AU FATCA implementation bill:
    http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/bill_em/tlaotfab2014510/memo_0.html
    No exploration of impacts of FATCA such as aid in US tax where tax treaty gaps permit. There is reference to the tax treaty – once again as all good – avoiding double taxation. Yet no explanation of what this means. No pointing out of tax treaty gaps.

    Re: privacy. Australian Privacy Policy was modified for FATCA ‘in case of international treaty.’ The impact statement above says discrimination is ok as long as there is a legitimate aim, which it claims there is.

22. Thanks JC, I’ll incorporate some of that info in the additional material we’re sending him about privacy issues. I’m particularly concerned that the ATO believes that FATCA data is no different from other data exchanges under the Australia-US tax treaty in light of the statement by former US Senator Carl Levin that the data is NOT tax return data and can be shared with other government agencies. Article 25 of the tax treaty clearly states that any information exchanged under the treaty can only be used for tax assessment and enforcement. There’s a disconnect here, and I’m not sure the ATO or the government realise it.

23. I am also seeing federal rep next week

    A quick dot point document would be helpful

    If more of us schedule appointments AND inform the media we may at least get officially recognized

24. JakDac
    I haven’t posted my list of talking points because it also contains personal information. I’ll see if I have time in the next few days to clean it up and post it.

25. Outstanding, LM!! Well done!