This weekend I spoke at length with a concerned Canadian citizen (ChearsBigEars) who believes that the time to launch the mother of all class actions lawsuits against the banks has already arrived. Why should we wait until the banks actually deprive Canadian citizens of their Charter rights? What if the banks are already in the process of planning to violate those rights? Would that not constitute a conspiracy to violate their rights?
Suppose TD Bank decided to ban some minority–let’s say anyone who is not white. Now they put out an advertisement that they wish to hire a bouncer who will stand at the door and prevent non-white people from entering the bank. Would those people who are about to have their rights violated have to wait until they were bounced or could they go ahead and launch a lawsuit based upon a conspiracy to violate Charter rights? My contact suggests that we can go ahead and sue the banks in a class action lawsuit and that we should do it right away, and it should be for one billion CDN dollars, to reflect the seriousness of this rights violation and the actual damages that are being inflicted by the United States as a result of the banks’ plan to implement FATCA. We can do this because TD Bank (et al.) has put out placement ads asking for FATCA compliance officers–not to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars that they have already spent putting a system in place to discriminate against comfortable and concerned clients. Here is plea that he sent me to share with the readers of the Isaac Brock Society:
FATCA CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT HELP NEEDED
We are currently investigating launching a Class Action Lawsuit against one of the major Canadian banks. The lawsuit will claim that the bank is conspiring to deprive Canadians of their rights under The Charter of Rights and Freedoms by advertising unlawfully for applicants for a job category designed to allow a hostile foreign power to harass and deprive certain large groups of their basic rights to live as other Canadians with equal rights to access to banking and other financial instruments.
Equality before and under law and equal protection and benefit of law
- 15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
If there are any constitutional and or class action attorney groups out there please contact us ASAP (petros at isaacbrocksociety dot ca).
WHY JOIN A CLASS ACTION?
- Joining a class action is a way to have your disputes resolved in a low-risk, low-cost manner. In most circumstances, class actions are pursued on a contingency fee basis, meaning that class counsel is only paid if a settlement or court award is achieved. Class counsel fees would then be paid out of the settlement or award.
- Joining a class action requires little effort on your part. In most circumstances, you are not required to provide any documentation until the case has been resolved either through settlement or court award. At that stage, you would simply be required to file a claim form.
- Class actions provide a mechanism for pursing claims of relatively small monetary value. Unfortunately, the costs of litigating is often prohibitive to pursuing one’s legal rights. By bringing an action on behalf of hundreds, or thousands of individuals, class actions make it possible to pursue claims that would otherwise be uneconomical.
- Class actions provide a mechanism for leveling the playing field with defendants that often have significant resources. Again, by bringing an action on behalf of hundreds, or thousands of individuals, class actions provide for greater bargaining power on the part of the injured parties.
- The class proceeding legislation contains many safeguards to ensure that the rights of class members are protected. For example, any settlement reached in a class action must be approved by the court as being fair, reasonable and in the best interests of class members.
@Em – i think that fatca ties in with the massive data capture project of the three letter agencies. fatca will now add financial account data to the emails, phone data and the social media data. i think that in due course the intention is to include all accounts of all people worldwide. tax is merely a pr pretence imho. if the world does not reject this ab initio then it may never be reversible due to the leverage big brother will have over every individual. china and the other brics with canada need to get a new reserve currency going fast.
@calgary411 – i suggest listening to the advice from the leading constitutional lawyers. if they say do not rush in then i am sure that they have good reason.
one more thought however. do u all think that the banks might try to put these lawyers on retainer and thus checkmate the opposition aka the brockers.
sorry 4 the lack of caps and so on but i am writing with large fingers on a small phone. please dont laugh. ok ok go ahead and laugh!
Since Brockers have already spoken to those lawyers, they couldn’t then allow themselves to be retained by the banks could they? That would be a clear conflict of interest and a breach of confidentiality. Also, if they personally know as charter lawyers that this breaches charter rights they would have no interest in representing clients who were so obviously trying to breach those rights.
@ nervous[big finger:)]investor
I think your take on all of this data grabbing is exactly bang on. Those who have the data, control those from whom the data has been extracted. FATCA the gun in the hand of the data grabbers, to make sure they get away with the heist.
Nuts! I’ll try this again …
@ nervous [big finger 🙂 ] investor
I think your take on all of this data grabbing is exactly bang on. Those who have the data, control those from whom the data has been extracted. FATCA is the gun in the hand of the data grabbers, to make sure they get away with the heist.
Well, folks. If certain lawyers don’t want to file a class action then we find a rainmaker who will. There is no reason to wait. As another lawsuit can be filed later too, against the government of Canada. But I don’t know why we would want to let the banks off the hook for what they are doing. As for me, I am not happy that they made me stand 18″ from the curb with my protest sign. Why aren’t more of you angry at the banks? Are you going to give up because in the opinion of some constitutional lawyer, we have to wait until they rounded us up into trains and taken us away to the camps, before we can launch a lawsuit? So now let me see: they are implementing the procedures to round us up, and they are lobbying the government to permit us to be rounded up, and they are already starting to attack us as we open new accounts. Please read the post again. The banks are conspiring to implement FATCA. FATCA is rounding up the accounts of so-called US persons and handing them over to a foreign government. The system will be in place and we will have less time to defend our rights that are already being destroyed.
I don’t care who these constitutional lawyers are or what their opinions are. Yeah, they’ve been around the block, but sometimes you have to go with new blood with people who are going to be creative and imaginative. I want to find a rainmaker who will make this happen. Even an unemployed young lawyer who can work the system, and knows where to file the paperwork. He will make a name for himself/herself. Think of the publicity of suing TD for a billion dollars and this website has already proved that he could find dozens of plaintiffs right off the bat. Sure, I’d prefer experience. But if those guys don’t have any imagination, then let’s find someone who does.
Let’s remember that law is not set in stone. Law is always a question of interpretation and opinion. So Mr. Hogg (who is not interested) and Joe Arvay believe the time to strike is after an IGA. That is not true.
Why are we putting up with this crap? If we were blacks or muslims or homosexuals or native Canadians, wouldn’t we start a pre-emptive lawsuit now? But because we are diverse US persons, do we think that the banks should have the right to conspire to take away our Charter rights?
@Petros. I agree…that’s what I was saying before. The banks are already stomping on our rights without the government having signed an IGA yet. So why wait?
Petros
Will the Canadain FACTA/IGA start date be June 30. 2014?
The previous sart date of DEc 31, 2013 would not apply to Canada?
Did the UK/US FACTA change the start date?
Petros, you’ve got me swinging like an unlatched door in a storm on this sue ’em now or not thing. I’m back to let’s do it now. I’m going to have to think more about this and try to stop swinging. I don’t know any lawyers but I sure hope someone here knows someone who can at least be approached with the idea of a lawsuit against the banks or would it be TD specifically?
Petros, I AM sick of this crap and the possibility of more crap to come. Note, however, that my credit union has not done anything YET to threaten me, nor the provincial bank my husband. We’ve got our dukes up but they haven’t even looked side ways at us. I’m not even sure if our small town credit union and provincial bank (located in a closet of a retail store) are even aware of FATCA … not that I’m about to ask them. Maybe the ad I placed in our local newspaper will get their attention, even though I only thought of it as a warning to people in this area who could be affected.
wait a second who said i was not a black, muslim, homosexual…. ??? 🙂
all kidding aside i would have to agree with you petros…..i am certain there must be a young hungry lawyer out there who wants to make a name for themselves
I see the banks as acting as if they know something we do not. One of my fears is the business end of FATCA. Large business transactions will end up on the desk of the IRS. What will they do with BUSINESS account transactions… good method of spying on Canadian Businesses right?? They will need these accounts if any US person is attached…. scares the hell out of me. The banks need to realize that government is not their bread and butter. The people that do business with the banks will have no privacy either. The grounds for action are very clear. I’ve lately seen a large number of Canadians standing up to this and getting involved. I’m behind any legal action that gets taken and ready to support it.
I was at BMO today to sell some stock my mother had and the financial planner I arranged to do it through had no clue that USP’s should be treated any differently. I told him I was a USC and he only asked if I have US property. I wasn’t about to educate him about FATCA. BMO’s web site knows more than the front line people do, it seems.
You’d think there’d be at least one USC with a law degree out there who could and would handle this.
Dammit my comment seems to have disappeared…
I think that this lawsuit against the banks would signal to the government that we are dead serious about challenging this damned law and that they are NEXT!
I don’t understand how one can challenge a law/regulation on any grounds, let alone Constitutional grounds, if that law/regulation does not currently exist. What would there be for a judge to rule on?
Petros
It may be better to go ahead with a lawsuit that is 75% chance of winning, than one with an inexperienced lawyer with a 20% chance of winning.
Gwen I think the Canadian government would be happy if the Canadian Supreme Court overturned FACTA. They just do want the financial chaos of US cutting off the US capital market to Canada. Canada has held out longer then EU and Mexico even though we are more vulnerable to cut off of US capital market. CRA will not collect USA taxes against Canadian citizen (at time it occurred). People here do not realize how powerful a tool cutting of Canada from US capital market. If this occurred expect to see a 1or 2% increase in interest rate and the much feared housing bubble will burst because of this.
Canadians’ Household Debt Reaches New High: $1.63 For Every Dollar Earned
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/09/13/household-mortgage-debt-canada_n_3920887.html
This was from Canada press but can not find original article
New Zealand IGA
Calgary new limit $250.000 USD
Accounts that you don’t have to review, identify or report on
You don’t have to review, identify or report on accounts with the balance or value of USD $250,000 or less unless you elect to do so.
However, if the balance or value of these accounts later exceeds USD $1,000,000, you will need to review, identify or report on these accounts using the review procedures.
http://www.ird.govt.nz/international/nzwithos/fatca/nzrfi-oblig-entity-preexist.html
@All
I agree with Petros. Lawyers understandably focus mainly, or even entirely, on whether a judge would rule in their clients’ favor. They are not playing to the “court” of public opinion, which is where the real value of a suit like this comes in. Even if there would be difficulty succeeding on the merits (because, for example, no harm has yet been suffered because the banks have not — yet — taken damaging actions against the plaintiffs), filing the suit could be a great way to spotlight attention on the violations of the Charter, etc., the banks are contemplating, and put further pressure on the government re an IGA.
@tdott, The law that’s being violated is our Charter rights. The manner in which is being violated is “conspiracy”. Now it is possible to launch a lawsuit of against someone for conspiring to violate one’s rights: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/11/15/canada_cooperated_with_us_in_abusing_omar_khadrs_rights_lawsuit_claims.html
@Jim, this is one of the main motivations: to get the media to finally focus on this issue. We can stand out in the cold 18 inches from the curb till we are blue in the face. But even though the Canadian media was across the street, our protest got no coverage. Launch a lawsuit for a billion dollars plus damages, and upwards to a million plaintiffs, and perhaps we will get some attention at last.
@GeorgeIII “It may be better to go ahead with a lawsuit that is 75% chance of winning, than one with an inexperienced lawyer with a 20% chance of winning.”
A lawsuit wins or loses, at least in a just world, based upon how well the advocate pleads his case and upon the merits of the case. A mediocre lawyer with a close and shut case should be able to win. Talk to people on the street two minutes about FATCA and they think it’s nuts. No one thinks this is a good idea or that the banks are doing what is right: even those who defend the banks say, cynically, that they have to do this or go bankrupt. Well, boo hoo. We don’t destroy people because we might go broke otherwise.
Petros
It may not be such an open and shut case.
http://www.dentons.com/~/media/PDFs/Insights/2013/June/FATCA%20%20Vulnerable%20to%20a%20Canadian%20Constitutional%20Challenge.ashx
The fact that Hogg does not want to litigate, is not a good sign.
Tell the average homeowner his mortgage can go open 1 or 2% and he may not be so happy if USG cut us off from US capital markets.
@Petros damn right! There is no “right” to profit. However, even with the case of Omar Khadr, his rights had to be violated first before the charge of conspiracy could be brought against the Can govt. I just spoke to my friend who is a lawyer and he said even with their stated intent to comply with FATCA in the absence of an IGA, no case can be brought until they actually do implement the policy. Intent is not a crime in the eyes of the law except in the case of criminal intent such as murder. So, as much as I want to slam them with a lawsuit, I think we do have to wait until they implement and then get an injunction to stop them from continuing and then sue them for violation of our charter rights. So damn frustrating!