It has been a traumatic last couple days for ‘Brockers’ as well as recently stunned ‘US persons’ who have just had their ‘OMG moment’. This is just the tip of the iceburg. We sit at a precipice looking down, and looking back. Many have not yet arrived at the point some of us are at. The current Canadian government helped create the precipice. They had a choice; they made the wrong one. We warned them; they didn’t listen.
My twenty-one year old daughter instantly grasps the concept of why you do not sacrifice a minority of people for a majority when you have a CHOICE to do otherwise. She used the example of a bus (yes a bus) traveling down the road towards a group of five people. She asked me, “if you had the power to grab the bus and throw it in another direction directly in the path of one person, would you do it?” We both agreed that the answer in this case is ‘Yes’, and yet this is the supposed argument our government is using to justify its agreement with the USA to implement FATCA. My twenty-one year old daughter and I intuitively get that the two situations are not the same. Apparently our Conservative government does not.
One of the cool things about Brock for me, has been the opportunity to correspond with, and meet in person, many intelligent, kind, moral people, and if it wasn’t for FATCA, I would never have had the opportunity to make my life a lot richer despite the pain of being persecuted for being born in the wrong country.
Last November, I protested with some of my new friends outside the Toronto Metro Convention Center – directly across from the CBC – where the Canadian Bankers Association was discussing how to implement FATCA (amongst other things). Some of my friends tried to engage the CBC, but the CBC and the American media(who had traveled all the way to Canada), were busily engaged with Rob Ford at Toronto City Hall a couple blocks away. At least we got attention from security at the Toronto Metro Convention Center who told us we could stand no closer than 18 inches from the curb. This was a small, peaceful, protest, so we kept to our 18 inches of designated area, despite the busy TO traffic.
One of the Brockers who joined us in our protest, and who I met for the first time told me that she/he is up to date on all her/his USA tax ‘obligations’. I was impressed that she/he had ‘come clean’ (yes we all hate that term), had been paying her/his ‘fair share'(grrr…), and yet was here, standing outside on a bit of curb, on a busy street, on a cold Toronto day, in a downtown wind tunnel because she/he wanted to fight for all the ‘US persons’ who had not yet had their ‘OMG I am an American taxpayer’ moment.
After the IGA was signed, she/he wrote:
Okay guys, I think this is where I get off the ride. I contacted the Toronto consulate yesterday and received all the docs to begin relinquishment. I’ve stressed over this for two long years, waiting and hoping that Canada would do the right thing, or at least carve out something to protect Canadian Citizens. If this goes to Parliament for vote, I’m sure all the Conservatives will vote with their party. I’m sure many Liberals and NDP’ers will also vote yes. Even the suspicion of US citizenship is toxic. It has officially forced our home countries, the countries of our citizenship, to treat us as second class citizens.
I can’t deal with this anymore. I need to get back to living my life and taking care of my family. I have no reason to hold on to citizenship. No family there, no assets, no income, and have not even visited the US since 1992.
There was nothing in the IGA to protect us. Only the banks received protection. Our registered accounts are all still fair game even though the banks don’t have to report them. I will not change my life to accommodate the IRS. I will not switch banks, or delete accounts, give up RESP’s, or any such nonsense. US citizenship is the problem and that’s what i need to get rid of. I need to do this before my anger takes over.
I was just telling someone today who called me and who has recently had their “OMG moment” how many wonderful people I’ve met through this fight against an immoral and unjust US law being bullied over our border.
It’s been a long, long road from those first days posting else where with a very small group of people to ending up here and protesting, writing government reps, growing, gaining traction, getting the media involved and in the end having this stupid “agreement” signed anyway.
It’s just turning a corner. I don’t think the fight to protect Canada’s Charter of Rights is over or ought to be and I know I am among friends who are GREAT at standing up and working hard to do what is right.
In so many ways it is amazing what’s been accomplished here and can still be accomplished. Canada signed that horrible “agreement” but, the record shows we tried to stop it as hard as we could. The more people who find out about this and have their “OMG” moment the more important this place and all of you will become to getting the word out and helping your fellows caught with that deer in headlights look.
We can do still more. CCLA needs to be engaged!
Iceland put the bankers and government in jail, and started over again from scratch.
You won’t hear about in anywhere in the media, though, cause that ain’t what US did in 2008 and not what the rest of ’em are doing now.
I heard about what Iceland did a while ago and thought “Now there is a country that’s setting a good example.”
I think everyone here who reads and has now memorized my family’s story knows that I would not have made it through the years I have without those of you I met at ExpatForum and then with whom I moved to IsaacBrock. The support I’ve found here and our sister site, Maple Sandbox, has been invaluable. I am honoured to have discussions with so many generous people who give of their time and their expertise for this cause. I respect all of you very much! I could not have predicted meeting any of you online in my wildest dreams. I couldn’t have imagined what is happening to us in those dreams either.
Thank you, all of you, from the bottom of my heart. You give me the strength I need each day.
I can’t start naming all the people so special to me for fear of leaving someone out. My travel east a couple of weekends ago for the first Toronto information session was a more current dream come true — to actually meet some of my heroes who come here every day and fight their hearts out for so-called ‘US Persons’ Abroad, many with no voice to stand up for themselves.
Yes, WhiteKat and Atticus, the people and the support are the silver lining in all of this horror.
it’s nice to have people to discuss this with. There are so few that take this issue seriously—those that are concerned are those nearing retirement, who have worked and saved responsibly
@MarkTwain,
So the younger ones don’t think they will get older? At the very least they should be thinking, ‘lets get out while the getting out is good, so I don’t end up like my dad/mom/uncle/whoever.
An easy way to get the point across about CBT….
Just remind the young ones to never buy a 649 or Lotto Max ticket and expect to win without paying the US their share…that pretty well goes for any prize…
I’m sorry, but I am not getting, through all the personal testimonies, what happened in Iceland. I know Iceland was very hard hit by the 2008 recession, but it is not clear from the testimonies what action was taken by the Icelandic government, what the reaction of citizens was and what the outcome was. Can someone kindly fill in the blanks for me? Thanks. 🙂
@Susan, I guess they put the bankers in prison instead of bailing them out. In the US, bankers fraudulently loaned out other people’s money in liar loans and none of them went to jail when the house of cards collapsed in 2007-8. Instead the US federal government and the Federal Reserve bank provided relief (TARP) and later bought up their toxic assets (QE I, II, III, infinity), and is still buying up their liar loans to bail them out.
Bankers going to jail would be good for Canada too, in my opinion. They should go to jail for lobbying the government of Canada to bail them out of FATCA. Isn’t this crime of majestas, of conspiring with a foreign government: Apparently the Twelve Tablets in Rome provided for the death penalty for anyone who communicated or handed over a citizen to an enemy. Well, citizens, are we not being betryed to a criminal organization in the US called the IRS?
Hey WhiteKat, it was cool meeting you too.
I don’t blame your friend for hopping off the American plantation permanently. I plan to do the same and I do have family and retirement plans that aren’t transferable down south. I will deal with that as a Canadian though – gods willing. But if the price is losing everything down there then so be it. Canada is not perfect. Our government has its fair share of appeasers and crooks but Canada is my home.
I have been in contact with the Immigration Minister’s office about the wait times and the new rules and was assured that I had nothing to worry about, which means that I should be worried. Whenever a govt flunky tells you “don’t worry your pretty little head, we’ve got this covered”, you should be plenty skeptical at the very least.
I don’t plan to give up my quest to point out how incredibly stupid it is to give away sovereignty for supposed material benefits. Sovereignty is priceless. Your citizenry is priceless. Short term pain to preserve them is the best default.
Look at the criteria. Read renunciation guide. Com . Then the IRS site. Very few fines have been levied in full . File 5 years f bars etc. then divorce. Should be many here who r gone. Who will tell u their experience. Get your cln then have real July 4th
.. No guts no freedom. Read discuss a free your selves
At least we’ve now reached a situation where the streams of putrid comment have totally dried up, all that clueless smarm that ran on and on about what a wonderful state Canada is bound to be because it is so different.
Q. Is a servile state more or less disgusting than a presumptive state?
A. Both are heartless states.
From a young person’s perspective of things they should have learned:
18. Take your struggle to your community, and find community in those whose struggles intersect. It is only within one another that we will make any sense of this destroyed world and it’s corrupt ideology that we’ve inherited. Fight. Fight. Fight.
…as I think what my kids have inherited from their mom, born and raised in the USA.