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:
@Schubert1975
You have expressed exactly what I think in what you wrote above in this post. My husband and I came to Canada on August 16, 1969. Thanks to Pierre Trudeau. Our son was born in November 1969 and when the song “American Woman” came out it was in a way our anthem. I have always considered Tommy Douglas as number 1 Canadian, Pierre Trudeau, number 2 for giving us the opportunity to come safely and legally to Canada. I also loved the way he would not take any guff from the USA. My next honored Canadian is Jack Layton.. I was devastated after he died. There was no Liberal good enough since Martin.(he kept the American banking system from taking over us and Chretien said no to Iraq to W.) and the NDP is sorrowful since Jack Layton died. My own MP seems to have become a political puppet. When I send him emails I now sign it “Canadian citizen who votes”.
Please let me know when the next meeting or protest is in Ontario is…I want to attend.
We should adapt the words to “American Worm-man”.
@Schubert1975
Your words are very stirring. My vote’s behind the party that opposes FATCA. It doesn’t hurt that they might hug a few trees too.
I’m forwarding this letter from the BC caucus to Thomas Mulcair in case he missed it.
@all
I already forwarded the letter to my MP.
I took thought of replacing the word “woman” in the song with FATCA.
@northerstar
I beat you here by two months and three days … 1969 was a good year to come. After recovering from the November 1968 nightmare of watching Humphrey, Nixon and Wallace fight over which of them was worse for the country and the world, I remember watching a TV discussion, soon after I arrived, between Trudeau, Stanfield and Douglas. My jaw was on the floor and there were tears in my eyes. What a contrast! I could happily have lived with any of the latter three was my national leader; no way was I living under any of the first-named three.
“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?”
Spot on Schubert. Perhaps it’s too early to say but it doesn’t look like I will get any response to my mini-e-mailing to the BC dozen less one (Savoie). The NDP does not seem to be listening. It has been much too silent on FATCA since the BC caucus sent out that excellent letter in 2011 to Ministers Flaherty and Baird. I fear it’s “no position” position on FATCA is because a little Bird told it so. Chicago is a conclave of corrupt politics in America and look what has just been allowed by the NDP to creep across the border.
The NDP have gone down a dangerous road. I’ve already said how I feel about bringing in Jeremy Bird and getting the all warm and fuzzy with the south of the border democrats. Wrong move. I had high hopes for the NDP once. Not anymore. You’ve summed up nicely why no self respecting NDP member should have been cheering on this move. I read an article last night from quite a while ago in the National Post. Jacobson was lauding talks between the U.S. and Canada. I followed a link from MS. He indeed was talking about their goal to “thin our border” I concur with others. don’t want the border thinned! Thicken that border up as much as possible!
It seems the NDP has changed much since the days I arrived in Canada.
I just read an article that was an eye opener.
excerpt:
“No. 3 : Pierre Trudeau’s Views on U.S. Vietnam War Resisters
A folkloric process has tried to transform Pierre Trudeau into a leader who “opened the gates” to Canada for U.S. Vietnam War resisters and gave them a “welcome.” The only specific action ever taken by the Trudeau Liberal government was to abandon covert discrimination against U.S. deserters, a step taken with great reluctance. While controversy on that issue raged throughout the first half of 1969, Pierre Trudeau kept silent and stood apart. His Minister of Immigration Allan MacEachen ultimately failed to withstand the persistent public criticisms of the NDP and the United Church. (Trudeau’s memoir makes no mention whatsoever of U.S. Vietnam War resisters, focusing mainly on bilingual policy and the October Crisis.) Archival research by John Hagan finds MacEachen reporting this comment made by Pierre Trudeau in early 1969:’
You can read the article on
http://www.vcn.bc.ca/~jjones/hstrnt.html
The US has made stealth (and not so stealthy) attempts to set Canada on a road toward “assimilation” throughout our history. It would not be a surprise if this were another. It would make sense given that the NDP are the official opposition and Harper hasn’t been as enthusiastic (for whatever political reason) about the Southland and its policies and needs in the last year of so.
One of Mulcair’s more recent trips down there seemed to be specifically for the purpose of kissing ass. Could he be trading sovereignty for a chance to be the puppet PM who gives us up? Who knows. Clearly, he is a collaborator of the US and their policies though.
Aha! I knew Blaze had done a song parody for “American Woman” but darned if I could find it. Luckily she posted it again at the Maple Sandbox. Go take a peek … it’s very good!
http://maplesandbox.ca/2013/have-the-ndp-brass-sold-out-to-the-obamacrats/#comment-10365
Here’s a little side by side comparison of the US and Canada 🙂
http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/US/CA
Let us be hopeful and expect that Mulcair will endorse the BC Caucus letter.
@ Joe. If and when Mulcair does endorse the BC Caucus letter; as a long time NDP supporter I question strongly why he would have waited until now to discuss it with his caucus? It seems late in the game. Has it not come up before? When you search Parliamentary records for 2011 and 2012 and see names of current caucus members (as well as MPs from the Liberals and the Conservatives) who sat in on committees that specifically mentioned FATCA and questioned guest speakers from the US (ex. Scott Michel) on it and related matters – and listened to comments about whether Canada should adopt something similar. See some of the results http://openparliament.ca/search/?q=fatca for a start .
Is it not late to take an official party position when various other NDP MPs have recognized the FATCA and extraterritorial US tax and FBAR issues, and NDP constituents and party members have tried to tell him and others that a FATCA IGA was described as ‘imminent’? And, does that mean that a complete silence was a desirable or acceptable alternative? Why the silence up until now when he’s been asked over many months, repeatedly about FATCA – via emails and in several NDP virtual ‘townhalls’? Were they going to wait until the negotiations were concluded and an IGA signed – and then let the Conservatives fend off any criticism?
Why not raise it in Parliament and force a public debate – so that all Canadians would be alerted to what is afoot – and participate in having a say about it? Why not let us have time to effect our divorce from out abusive relationship with the US – as is our right. There is nothing democratic about how this has been approached. If an IGA is to be signed, then FATCA was obviously to be sprung on Canadians unaware – and we will be bound forever by it – without any public debate or discussion?
How can fellow Canadian citizens and permanent residents be treated as not worthy of a full and fair public debate on FATCA?
I think about what would have happened had those at the Expat forum not been turfed out. And if IBS had not been formed? It would fall to each one to deal with this on their own. I never would have known or understood the significance of FATCA without Just Me’s prescient explanations of FATCA, DATCA and GATCA.
And what of the need to maintain support in Quebec? I doubt that sovereigntists would be any more sanguine about signing up to assist the US with FATCA than we are. Is it not a double betrayal of Quebec sovereignty and self determination – bound in to it by the federal government and the US?
Quebec (as well as the Maritimes and other parts of Canada) has a long history of a cross border movement of people back and forth across into the US http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/readings/leaving.htm http://www.educ.ualberta.ca/css/Css_38_2/BRcrossing_parallel_migration.htm . and “…This book, perhaps more than any other, demonstrates just how important the mingling of Canadians into American society has been. …” ….In effect, the book is based on the discovery of a United States government series of statistics, the Soundex Index to Canadian Border Entries to the U.S.A., which provided the author with a reliable source for the quantification of Canadian emigration to the United States 1906-30… “the Soundex Index permits the author to deal not simply with the Quebec aspect of the diaspora, but to widen the perspective to include Canada’s other regions, in this case the Atlantic provinces, Ontario, and the West. This allows for both a comparative perspective between Canadian regions, and the spatial mapping of the cross-border migration patterns from Canada to the United States. ” http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/can/summary/v085/85.2beaudreau.html
Mulcair and the other MPs from Quebec would likely have to have insight into whether FATCA could even be enacted without Quebec’s agreement. We have not had any IBS discussion of the special challenges that FATCA might meet and create because of the status and powers of Quebec inside Canada. I don’t know enough about this, but found this; http://www.fiscalreform.net/library/pdfs/fiscal_federalism_in_canada.pdf
by R Boadway – 2000. It made me wonder if there could be a constitutional issue if the Harper government signed on to FATCA – but Quebec did not agree.
I would ask these questions of the Liberals and Conservatives too. We know that Harper controls his caucus – so if FATCA is signed, we know that comes directly from Harper.
But what of the Liberal party? What discussions have they had as a party and in caucus? If they are against FATCA, they have not taken an official party position either. Why not? Here is a very clear and laudable stance against FATCA and US aggressive pursuit of CBT in Canada http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/04/25/email-from-liberal-mp/ by MP Fry, who obviously understands the seriousness of the situation, and the burden on individuals in Canada (I’m personally still baffled by the reference to a specific two year amnesty period).
Given the frequency, size and long history of crossborder migration in both directions between the two countries, there are most likely many politicians and members of ALL Canadian political parties who will personally be effected by FATCA and the current aggressive US crusade against those in Canada that the US Treasury defines as ‘US taxable persons’.
@Badger
Excellent points, all of them.
Mulcair’s email inbox Monday morning is going to have quite a range of quite critical comments aimed directly at his silence on this issue, and questions about how he can say the NDP doesn’t have a position when they clearly do, or at least the BC caucus did and one hopes still stand by it. And it won’t only be my email; I’ve been blind-copied on a few others, they’re all excellent, they all come at this from somewhat different angles, and none of them is a boilerplate missive. BC caucus are also getting some traffic on this. Keep those cards and letters flowing, folks.
I see the NDP(Paul Dewar and Linda McQuaig) want to ban Russian politicians who voted for anti gay legislation from entering Canada. Can we ban Carl Levin et all from entering Canada?
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/09/21/ndp-russia-anti-gay-law_n_3968051.html
@Tim
Is that effing Rome burning in the background?
@ brockers. CLN in hand fiinally….. I still tear up when I hear the star spangled banner,,,,so to help myself get through it I composed the below ditty. lame….but it helps
Oh say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so dismally hailed as FATCA enacted
Whose clauses and texts, through our perilous fight
To repeal this beast, we want the law retracted
And the articles’ glare, IBS posts bursting in air
Gave proof through the fight that our will was still there
Oh say do you have your C-L-NNNNN to wave
As you say goobye to the land of the brave
strength and honour
@ crystal london
Nicely done with your star strangled banner. And congratulations on getting that CLN. May the force be with you as you enter the final filings stage. 🙂 Strength and honour — indeed!
Congratulations, Crystal!!!
@ monalisa
Now don’t you get all weepy like Crystal. Sing her “ditty” instead. 🙂 I used to stand up for the “Star Spangled Banner” when I was there but I never sang it. I honestly didn’t feel the need to learn the words. When I got back to Canada I found out they had changed some of the words to “O Canada” so I had to learn the new version. When they do the English/French split I just sing la, la, la or barrel on through in English.
@Crystal london
Congratulations on receiving your CLN. I am a waiting mine. Nicely recreated Star Spangled banner. I never sing in public. I can’t carry a tune, I just mouth the words.
@Badger, sorry, I didn’t get around to singing “American Woman” yet. I’m kind of waiting to become more liberated from the US system first.
Thanks for the ditty @crystal london, I will use it too.
And congratulations on your CLN!
No shame in tearing up while you’re tearing up (cancelled blue passport).
@swisspinoy, I never liked the original lyrics of the song ‘American Woman’ anyway – Blaze’s version is much better.
Time will pass and your liberation will be complete.
Best wishes to your family.
@crystal london
I hope that you will eventually find peace in your new found freedom.