Has the NDP Brass sold out to the Obamacrats?
On October 14, 2011, the BC Caucus of the NDP sent a letter to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird about FATCA. The letter states five objectives which the caucus said should guide Canada’s negotiations with the US on FATCA. (See BC Caucus Letter to Flaherty and Baird re-IRS, please read the objectives on page two). I and, I think, any reasonable Canadian could accept an IGA if it incorporates and respects ALL of these five objectives. I cannot support an IGA that fails any of these five, nor can I support a political party that would sell out any of these five objectives. It sure looks to me like a clear and excellent policy statement.
Tom Mulcair said in Toronto Thursday (see the other threads) that the NDP doesn’t have a position on FATCA and won’t until he consults his caucus. Sorry, Tom, but twelve BC members of your caucus actually listened two years ago to their US-born constituents and formulated a position before you were chosen leader. What’s wrong with that position? Why haven’t you endorsed it, and why have you waited this long even to answer questions about FATCA, refusing to date even to acknowledge receipt of emails sent to you from around Canada concerning FATCA?
The answer, my friends, may be blowing in the following quotation from a fund-raising appeal sent by NDP National Director Nathan Rotman about a week ago to all NDP party members.
“We’ve got some of the best talent in the world working with us here at New Democrat headquarters. For example, Jeremy Bird, an Obama campaign strategist and architect of the most impressive field campaign in electoral history.”
Aside from the exceptionalist (and arguable) characterization of the Obama campaign, please note that the only people named in this letter by Rotman are Mulcair, Tommy Douglas, Jack Layton, and Jeremy Bird. Bird isn’t a Canadian or an NDPer, and Mulcair isn’t fit to be mentioned on the same page as Tommy and Jack, in my opinion. But Mulcair and Bird are what NDP members are supposed to get excited about and are asked open their wallets for monthly donations from now until the election.
Just as disturbing, I seem to recall reading that at the April national policy convention of the NDP, some accredited delegates who had paid the convention fees had their credentials lifted and were expelled from the convention, for daring to exercise their rights of free speech by carrying placards on the convention floor, criticizing US drone strikes among other things, during a speech by a prominent member of the Obama team (I forget whether it was Bird or someone else). That smacks of Chicago-Democrat-style “democracy” as witnessed on world-wide television during the 1968 Democratic Convenion in Chicago (run by Mayor Richard Daley and his thugs) and also behaviour by the Obama forces at the 2008 Democratic Convention aimed against Hilary Clinton supporters, as reported by Atticus in various comments on this website and in private emails and conversations with some of us.
Have National Director Nathan Rotman and Leader of the Opposition Tom Mulcair sold their souls to the Obamacrats? Do we have in the NDP a Fifth Column of ACTUAL US persons wishing to undermine both the NDP and Canadian sovereignty? Are Chicago-style politics and US-style campaign strategies part of Tom Mulcair’s “vision” of “remaking democracy” in Canada? If so, that isn’t a vision, it’s a nightmare.
I am a citizen of Canada and only of Canada. I am a firm believer in Canadian sovereignty. I have been supporting the NDP now for more than 40 years. But I will not support any political party, never mind the NDP, that can’t figure out how to run a national campaign without asking for American “help” and opening the door to a Fifth Column subversion of Canadian sovereignty. If the NDP can’t figure out a Canadian campaign strategy without help from an Obama organizer from the States, why should anyone think they can run our country without “guidance” and “advice” from Washington, either? (There, Tory, Liberal, Progressive Canadian, and Green ad-agency writers, I’ve just handed you a gift. Please use it in good health.)
The NDP has forfeited any future financial support from me. It has forfeited my membership in their party. And, unless there is a radical change of the direction I am now seeing, it will forfeit my vote in all future federal elections and by-elections.
If you’re an NDP member, don’t sit on your hands and allow this subversion of what once was a proud Canadian party to happen. Write the national office and Mulcair, and your MP if he/she is NDP, and tell them what I just wrote above and told them in a letter to both of them and my MP Paul Dewar about a week ago. To which letter I have yet to receive any reply.
“American Woman, Stay Away from Me.” Remember that song? Revival time, I think. Gee Mulcair and Rotman, would you have banned this song from the April convention too? (This has always been among my first choices for a new Canadian national anthem … though there are one or two Stan Rogers songs I’d probably prefer for that.) Thanks to Youtube, the Guess Who in 1970, still relevant and still stirring my soul:
@Crystal london, Congratulations! You are free. Something the U.S. claimed to offer you *freedom* The problem was they only meant it for those who live there. If you don’t live there you are to be punished for not doing so. Instead, like the freedom seeking individual you are, you have given that freedom to yourself!
And this…
http://jeancrowder.ndp.ca/jeans-column-on-the-u-s-foreign-account-tax-compliance-act-fatca-for-the-cowichan-valley-citizen-september-2011
Don’t bother looking for anything about FATCA in the “NDP Policy” pdf. There’s nothing there!!!!
FATCA — Found on 0 pages
And don’t expect a real reply from Mulcair if you send another e-mail like I did. They just look up to the top row, third cubbyhole on the left, and pull down a stock “no response” response. Plus, even though you write in English, the “no response” response comes first in French.
The contrast with Elizabeth May’s outreach and level of communication is the difference between day (May) and night (Mulcair). Instead of listening to that little American Obamacrat Bird the NDP should be taking notes from the Green Party’s websites.
@Em You actually got a “no response” email from Mulcair’s office? If even in French first?
Whoa, that’s amazing. I’ve never had any response to anything I’ve sent to his office, and I was until last week an actual member of his party!
Absolutely right about Green communications. I sent them a donation toward May’s tour yesterday via their website, then a reply to the auto-receipt I got in my email, asking for info on when she’s speaking in Ottawa (September 30). I got a reply this morning from their Executive Director (equivalent to Rotman I think) telling me time and place. (I hadn’t noticed the calendar of speaking events on their website, which is buried a bit but found it afterwards here for anyone who might be interested: http://www.greenparty.ca/events/21
Look for the “Save Democracy from Politics Tour” entries in September and October to find the nearest-to-you town hall meeting with Elizabeth May.
NDP national office still hasn’t replied to my missive of about ten days ago blasting them for hiring Bird to do their campaign planning, and telling them I’m cancelling my membership and never giving them another donation. Though I guess replying to something like that isn’t going to be high on their priority list, earlier emails on various issues including FATCA have also all gone unanswered. Is it my breath?
@Joe and anyone who goes to that link he posted just above:
Please note that statement on Jean Crowder’s website (NDP member in BC) was posted in September, 2011. Again, an NDP “policy” statement by an MP, two years ago now, and Mulcair says the NDP has no position. Either the man is ignorant of what his own caucus is doing, or he’s suppressing what they did before he became leader. Neither interpretation makes me want him as my next Prime Minister; he’s either incompetent or as much a control-freak as Harper, and we don’t need either of those characteristics in 24 Sussex Drive, had enough of that already.
… or, as I suggested in my original post, he’s sold out to the Obamacrats. Also not something I want in my federal cabinet, never mind the PMO.
@ Schubert
Yes, to my recent e-mail. No, to my previous ones.
And this is all it said …
On behalf of Thomas Mulcair, we would like to acknowledge receipt of your email.
Please be aware that our office receives a large volume of correspondence every day which means we cannot always respond as rapidly as we would like.
If you would like information about our team of New Democrat MPs or our policies, please visit our website at http://www.ndp.ca.
Thank you for taking the time to write.
Sincerely,
Office of Thomas Mulcair, M.P. (Outremont)
Leader of the Official Opposition
New Democratic Party of Canada
I think it’s your buzzing role in that “large volume of correspondence”. It is not your breath. Thank you for trying to scale the walls of NDP incommunicado.
@Em
Aww they get so much mail. But then they’re the official opposition, they have a budget and leader’s staff, at the taxpayers’ expense. Elizabeth May is a lone MP, minimal budget, nothing like what the NDP gets. Maybe she and the Greens don’t get as much email, but I’d love to see some numbers in terms of emails received, emails replied to, relative to budget and staff, Greens vs NDP, leader’s office vs party HQ. That isn’t nit-picking; it affects my judgment of relative competence and “customer service” to run an office, never mind a government.
What really sticks in my craw is that I’ll bet you won’t ever get any follow-up rely, as seems to be promised in the wording of that response you got. They want our money and our vote, don’t care a damn about our opinions. At least Mulcair and the national office don’t; their BC caucus sure seemed to, two years ago, and maybe still do I hope. But my own MP doesn’t.
@schubert1975
I have been a generous donor to the NDP but will let FATCA determine where my money goes…I am not at all thrilled with my MP’s reponses to my emails.
BTW.
My friend who was at the seniors clubs quarterly meeting and is it’s secretary asked me about FATCA as she said one of her members was asking her about it who heard me speak at that meeting a couple Sundays ago. I gave her a copy of the one page fact sheet. She liked it and so did my two other friends with her. One being an American who has been a permanent resident here in Canada for 50 years. Tomorrow I will give out more copies to a painting club. Hopefully I will get the attention of many who do not know about FATCA. It was encouraging to hear my non American person comment that this is invading all Canadian privacy. Maybe it will be making an effect. I asked my boyfriend who is often annoyed at my FATCA concern to read the fact sheet. He said it was good.. That is saying something…and he said he knew all about with me telling him all the time but that the sheet is good for those who don’t know. Good work my friends.
Is this related to what we are seeing re the silence of the Leader of the NDP as to an official party position – or his personal position on FATCA and Canada?
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/09/23/prepare_to_see_a_more_cutthroat_ndp_hbert.html
See;
…”Topp also advocates a more bare-bones repetitive message, backed by strictly enforced talking points and limited media access.
As an aside, those who doubted that the tears the federal opposition parties have been shedding over Harper’s controlling approach to the parliamentary press were of the crocodile variety will be brought back to their senses by this memo.
Not only does Topp recommend that campaign encounters between the leader and the media be “brief and rare” but he adds that they “should be managed with a ‘chair’ to assign questions and a strict limit on the number of questions.”
What makes his analysis both compelling and dispiriting is that Topp was one of the leading architects of the federal campaign that resulted in the NDP wave that swept Quebec two years ago.
Layton spent little time belittling the Conservatives or his opposition rivals in Quebec in 2011 and his message stood out because it struck a rare positive note in an otherwise poisoned environment.
In the wake of that breakthrough, there was speculation that Layton’s success might bring some traffic back to the increasingly less-travelled political high road. In fact, it is a parade that the NDP is less and less likely to lead….”
…….. “…there is mounting evidence that upcoming federal byelections in Toronto Centre and Bourassa will provide trial runs for a more aggressive, take-no-prisoner NDP style….”
Perhaps FATCA can be an important issue in the Bourassa riding in Quebec? A FATCA IGA seems certainly a sovereignty issue for Quebec, as they see taxation as a sovereignty issue within Canada (and from without?). How would Mulcair and others answer questions about FATCA if asked by a Quebec audience?
See a bit about the Bourassa riding from various perspectives:
http://www.punditsguide.ca/2013/09/ndp-sets-two-nomination-meeting-dates-as-conservative-deadline-approaches/
Green Party perspective;
http://www.greenparty.ca/blogs/2022/2013-07-08/laraques-bourassa-election-gambit-real-game-changer
and from this Star columnist Chantal Hebert (from what perspective? http://nsb.com/speakers/view/chantal-hebert ) http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/09/09/ndp_determined_to_fight_liberals_every_inch_of_the_way_hbert.html
NDP seems to have a position on FATCA again. I’m just not sure it’s the position we want them to have.
Joe Arvay just sent me a letter from NDP Revenue Critic Murray Rankin to Flaherty. It is posted at Maple Sandbox.
http://maplesandbox.ca/2013/ndp-revenue-critic-letter-to-flahert
I received this e-mail today. Kennedy Stewart is one of the BC caucus who wrote to Flaherty and Baird back in 2011. I think it’s a pretty decent response.
Thank you for sharing your concerns regarding the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).
The Harper government is currently participating in closed doors negations with the US over an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) for the implementation of FATCA in Canada. Such an agreement would likely require Canada to enact laws and regulations that would require Canadian financial institutions to comply with FATCA. New Democrats have serious concerns about the lack of transparency and consultation during the negotiation process and the potential infringements on the rights of Canadians.
If implemented, the IGA would likely require Canadian banks, investment funds and other financial institutions to disclose annually to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) accounts held by American citizens, including dual citizens in Canada. Failure to disclose account information could result in a withholding tax applied to U.S. income earned by the institution or by account holder. The goal of this policy is to aggressively target American citizens who are improperly shielding assets in offshore accounts.
Essentially, FATCA would allow the United States to bypass the exchange of information between the IRS and the Canada Revenue Agency and instead get information directly from Canadian financial institutions and there are widespread concerns that this exchange of information could potentially violate existing Canadian privacy laws.
New Democrats have repeatedly raised concerns over FATCA with the Conservatives and asserted that the government has a responsibility to protect innocent Canadian citizens from the improper and unreasonable intrusion of a foreign government.
New Democrats are fighting for the Conservatives to finally get serious when it comes to tax havens. We believe the Canadian Government has a responsibility to protect Canada’s tax base, and while we understand the United States’ desire to protect their own tax base, this cannot come at the cost of the rights of individuals residing in our own country. We are demanding answers and transparency from the Conservatives on FATCA, and will not support an agreement that violates the privacy rights of individuals.
My New Democrat colleagues and I will continue to stand up for fair taxation and for privacy rights.
Please do not hesitate to contact me with any further questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
KENNEDY STEWART
Member of Parliament for Burnaby–Douglas
Official Opposition Critic for Science and Technology
The timing of the Rankin letter (dated Sept 25 but posted Sept 24) detailing NDP position, coming so soon after angry emails to Mulcair, does make you wonder whether the letter arose out of any true conviction of NDP leadership. In the NDP party there appears to be a (large?) base that supports increased taxation and catching all tax cheats to achieve social justice and another (now tiny?) base of Tommy Douglas-types who are strong defenders of rights of Canadians. [Mulcair has been attacked by “progressives” for refusing to increase taxes on the wealthy: http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2013/08/09/why-is-tom-mulcair-opposed-to-tax-increases/]
The Rankin letter has some ambiguous and unpleasant parts (the “tax cheats” sentence below). However, overall it has to be a plus when Official Opposition complains to government and expresses “serious concerns” about the FATCA-IGA. In some context, our rights were mentioned a total of five times in the letter.
Rankin cc Mulcair etc. can be asked to clarify position on the uncertain parts of the letter (see Sandbox comments) and to confirm that he and Mulcair will raise the FATCA issue in House of Commons during the first week of Question Period. Murray.Rankin@parl.gc.ca
A few excerpts:
http://maplesandbox.ca/2013/ndp-revenue-critic-letter-to-flaherty/#comments
As I’ve replied on Sandbox, while I don’t think this Rankin letter is as clear and forthright and unequivocal as was the BC Caucus letter two years ago, this is damn sight better than Mulcair’s waffling and McQuaig’s stupid published position on FATCA which she still hasn’t revised or even acknowledged in the Toronto Centre race as far as I know. It isn’t perfect, it isn’t as forthright as the Green Party’s position on FATCA and its implications for Canada, but it’s better than a kick in the teeth, which is what I have been wondering about from Mulcair and Obamacrat-US-Fifth-Columnist-cum-NDP-campaign-strategist Jeremy Bird.
Which raises some intriguing questions about what will go on in the NDP caucus, if McQuaig wins the by-election and she, Mulcair, and Rankin are sitting together around the table. Though actually I like the idea of the caucus being split; at least that’s democratic, which would be an improvement over the anal-retentive attitude all three parties seem to have (NDP recently, according to Chantal Hebert in the Toronto Star), regarding party discipline and reducing backbenchers and even some front benchers to little more than trained seals (see also Andrew Coyne’s excellent piece in the current issue of Walrus magazine, see also what Elizabeth May is saying in her current “Save Democracy from Politics” tour).
I agree with IRSCompliant that there seems to be a split in, or developing, in the NDP between Obamacrat-wannabees like McQuaig, possibly also Mulcair, Topp and Rotman, versus more traditional NDP populists (who actually listen to constituents and try to do something for them) like Rankin and the BC Caucus. Which is better than the alternative of having the caucus quashing under the thumbs of the leader’s office, as seems to be the case with the Harper Tories.
This letter isn’t as strong as I’d like, but it’s the first positive and encouraging news I’ve heard coming from the NDP in nearly two years, on this issue certainly.
For those who would like to see the full text of Murray Rankin’s letter to Flaherty, as NDP Revenue Critic, please click on the link at the bottom of IRSCompliant’s comment quoting from the letter. At that Sandbox link you will find a download link that will give you the full letter, House of Commons letterhead and all. The letter is worth reading in its entirety, in fairness to Rankin. Even though I prefer the NDP Caucus letter from two years ago …
The Rankin letter is “better than a kick in the teeth” and obviously when we write to NDP members now it will be the template for their replies. Kennedy Stewart was certainly using it in his e-mail to me.
@ Shubert1975
I read your post again. So very very inspiring. Should take it to the protests. Would love to hear American woman and Don’t Back down while are there.
In fairness to the NDP, since my original post went up, not only did NDP Revenue Critic Murray Rankin write to Jim Flaherty expressing strong concerns about FATCA and an IGA, but also Tom Mulcair has written letters to many correspondents stating a clear anti-FATCA position.
I remain concerned about the NDP using an Obama organizer to plan their 2015 strategy, assuming they’re still using him. Their later funding letters don’t mention Jeremy Bird at all. Whether that means they’re no longer using him, or they’ve realized his name isn’t a great marketing ploy with many NDP members, I can’t say.
However I have to retract what I said earlier about the NDP as a whole caucus, and Mulcair, not having a policy on FATCA. They do; see other posts on this website for the quotations.
I don’t think my post above would be a fair or accurate thing to be passing around at meetings or rallies, given the statements made by Rankin and Mulcair after I posted the original. Though perhaps a question about Jeremy Bird and links to the Obamacrats might be appropriate, I think the NDP position on FATCA is clear and encouraging to me.
@schubert1975
If it hadn’t been for you and others pushing the NDP into taking a position, one may still not have been forthcoming. Their current position more than likely resulted from the harsh criticism leveraged against them. They were fair game until they did the right thing. I find it very satisfying knowing that Jeremy Bird might be discussing this turn of events with other Obamacrats.
@bubblebustin
I hope I had a hand in Mulcair’s and Rankin’s positions finally becoming clear, however small a role that might have been in reality, and I certainly don’t regret anything I said in the original post, given the situation at the time I said it. I just don’t want anyone wandering into this thread to overlook the fact the NDP does have a very forthright position on this issue now, including McQuaig (or at least her campaign staff; the email posted elsewhere was from a staffer not from her, but it clearly came from her campaign so maybe that’s nit-picking (or maybe not, you decide).
I have no problem with Jeremy Bird discussing the turn of events with the Obamacrats, I just don’t want the NDP or any other Canadian political party taking campaign advice, never mind “marching orders,” from ANY American political party or organizer, Democrat or Republican. That border between our countries is there for a very good reason, and certain forms of cross-border trade are not legitimate in my book. (Nor do I think any Canadian parties or advisors have any business trying to influence Democrat or Republican campaign strategies, as if there were any risk they’d listen to anyone outside their own country.)
@schubert1975
This thread shall forever remain testimony to our struggle!
The NDP would be ill advised to think that the approach the Americans use during political campaigns would work in Canada. America’s polarization is the biggest threat America faces right now, imo. Why would anyone who cares about Canada want to emulate anything that basket case does?
AMEN to that!! On so many dimensions I don’t know where to begin, and it would be off-thread mostly …