This is part of a comment posted by “Blaze”:
Right Hon. Steven Harper
Prime Minister
House of Commons
Ottawa ON K1A 0A6
Dear Mr. Harper:
RE: IRS INTRUSION INTO CANADA
Let me be clear. Like you “I am a Canadian and only a Canadian.” Like you, I have only ever had a passport of one nation. That passport is Canadian.
You made those points recently concerning Thomas Mulcair’s dual citizenship.
I would encourage anyone here who has the time to post responses on the TSR Infrarouge website in order to fuel the debate and increase awareness amoung the Swiss of how bad the situation is:
http://www.infrarouge.ch/ir/thread-364069-suisse-protege-assez-peuple-contre
Here is information from the Federal Register dates January 26, 2012. Note the penalties. If you are a permanent resident of Canada who has not become a Canadian citizen …
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-01-26/html/2012-1567.htm
[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 17 (Thursday, January 26, 2012)] [Proposed Rules] [Pages 3964-3966] From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov] [FR Doc No: 2012-1567]
What does it mean for the future?
I am pleased to have now invited Jeff D Tomas, nom de plume, from Switzerland to contribute here at Isaac Brock. To give you a sample of his writing, I reproduce here his recent comment at Isaac Brock and his editorial, in French, at Infrarouge. As many at Isaac Brock are able to read French, they can see how embarrassing it should be for the United States to be criticized in this manner, as the US policies violate not only the US constitutional protections but forces other sovereign states to violate their own human rights codes, not to mention the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations. Jeff commented:
The statistics for search engine terms that bring internet trawlers onto the Isaac Brock Society web site show that only one search counts for much at all: the three words “isaac brock society.” A known-item search …
I poked into this findability topic after monitoring and testing search functionality over at the InfoShop. At this point Google has crawled around the InfoShop — a phrase search [wrap it in quotation marks] for a pithy bit like “longstanding american exceptionalism” will demonstrate that.
The words that worried expatriate Americans seem likely to stab into their keyboards will not connect them in any easy fashion with either Isaac Brock Society or with the InfoShop. Launch a few verbal forays and see for yourself. Stabbing into the dark.
I love to share my concerns with you all. I am a dual citizen Brazil/USA and I always saw the USA as a fair country, like they say, Americans always do the right thing after trying everything else. But lately I have been questioning this belief because of the enormous difficulties I am having trying to comply with the IRS demands on Americans Living Abroad.
They seem so unfair to me. My reactions so far can be summed up under FEAR. And perhaps CONFUSION. Love to exchange ideas with you all.
Alison Symington, “Dual citizenship and forced marriages” (PDF), Dalhousie Journal of Legal Studies 10 (2001); Winner of the Smith Lyons Essay Prize.
Abstract: This paper examines the phenomenon of forced marriage and how the international law on diplomatic protection and domestic citizenship laws interact to prevent young women from receiving help because of their status as dual nationals. The evolution of international law and the rise of human rights are considered, the author contesting international rules preventing the United Kingdom from attempting to assist its nationals who are abducted to South Asia for the purposes of forced marriage. This paper demonstrates how in complex situations involving power, gender, culture and politics, law is better understood as a struggle over meaning than as a stated rule of practice.
A friend just returned from Halifax. They told him his application was a “slam dunk.”
Born in the U.S. parents moved him back to Canada as a teenager and he’s been here ever since.
They also told him it would be 2 to 6 months. Hope that applies to all of us.
I heard again from Honourable Mike Sullivan and responded:
“Thanks once again for getting back to me. …
