The following is a cross-post from Maple Sandbox, a post by Blaze. WE STRONGLY ENCOURAGE ALL TORONTO-AREA BROCKERS AND SANDBOXERS TO ATTEND THIS DEBATE IF THEY CAN.

An organization called Toronto Centre Debates has announced there will be an all-candidates debate specifically on FATCA, to which all eleven candidates are being invited, for November 18 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Update: The location will be the Don Mills United Church at 126 O’Connor Drive M4K 2K7.  Doors open at 6:45 pm.  In their update, the organizers note that all candidates are invited, and that while the debate will focus on FATCA, there will be time for discussion of other questions and issues.  PLEASE SUPPORT THIS DEBATE BY ATTENDING IF YOU CAN!

@TorontoCentre Debates: ALL #TorCen candidates invited to “#FATCA Centric” All Candidates – November 18/13

What follows is the cut-and-paste from Blaze’s post which may also be found here
http://maplesandbox.ca/2013/fatca-centric-debate-toronto-centre-november-18/
The organizers say:

FATCA – The most important issue Canadians are not aware of and Candidates won’t talk about!

Their information provides links to the recent MacLean’s article (What Is FATCA: IRS Peeking Into Canadians’ Accounts article by Erica Alini) and the OpEd News article (FATCA Faces Tell the Real Story) by Lynne Swanson. It incorporates much of the latter article into the blog.

In addition: Continue reading →

As has been mentioned on another post, several activists with the Isaac Brock and Maple Sandbox sites have planned a demonstration in Toronto on November 13 and 14, on the sidewalk outside the convention centre where representatives of various Canadian financial institutions are meeting to discuss, among other things, “navigating the hurdles to compliance with FATCA.”

Five candidates for the Toronto Centre by-election, and their campaign organizations, have been invited to participate in the demonstration. They are the candidates for the Conservative, Green, Liberal, New Democrat, and Progressive Canadian parties. The Progressive Canadian party was included, in thanks for their support some months ago in organizing an excellent meeting in Toronto on FATCA and all that is wrong with it. The Greens, Liberals and New Democrats all have expressed major reservations about FATCA. The Conservatives were included in fairness and to signal that we are not partisans and represent a full spectrum of political views, while being united in opposition to FATCA and any Canada-US IGA.

We thought this would be an opportunity to learn exactly what degree of support these parties are, or are not, prepared to provide to those opposing FATCA and an IGA. After some discussion, a group of us agreed that all five of the mentioned parties should be contacted, but none of the other candidates on the ballot (eleven in total).

For those who are interested, attached is a PDF copy of the email that was sent to each of the five parties (with the organizer’s and sender’s personal particulars removed). generic candidate email

The Conservative email was copied to Jim Flaherty. The other four emails were copied to the parties’ leaders; also, the Liberal email was copied to MPs Ted Hsu, Scott Brison, and Irwin Cotler (Liberal justice critic and former Minister of Justice); and the NDP email was also copied to MP Murray Rankin.

We will keep you posted as to who does or does not accept the invitation. Draw your own conclusions from this information.

Linda McQuaig’s (NDP) campaign office is at this writing the only one to acknowledge and then reply; the reply says that Ms. McQuaig unfortunately “is unable to attend. Best of luck with your event!”

As replies are passed on to me, I will update in the comment thread to this post.

UPDATED NOVEMBER 9 – As IRSCompliantForever has noted in his update to his post on the demonstration, and as I’ve detailed in the comment thread below, I am pleased to announce that Progressive Canadian Party candidate Dorian Baxter has replied, saying his is attempting to rearrange his schedule so he can assist in our demonstration.  The text of his reply appears below in my comment post today.  At this time, only Baxter and McQuaig have replied.