Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed
~ Martin Luther King Jr.
Please help. Donate to the Canadian Charter Challenge Fund.
February 5, 2014 was the day we thought we would never see. It was the day the Canadian government announced it had caved to a foreign nation’s demands to invade our honest, law abiding lives as Canadian citizens and residents to seize our private and legal financial records. It was the day we learned the Canadian government considers us second class Canadians with limited rights under Canadian laws and Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Today is the day we begin our drive to fight back. February 28, 2014 is the day we launch our Canadian Charter Challenge Fund to raise money for a legal opinion from prominent constitutional lawyer, Joseph Arvay.
We must demand freedom. We must demand our government uphold our rights. We must demand the government place its citizens and residents over the demands of a foreign power.
We must demand our government place our rights over those of the bully oppressor. We must band together to fight for our cherished Canadian rights and freedoms. We must do it now.
Remember, the War of 1812 was not over until 1815. We should likewise expect our battle to be long, messy and expensive.
First published on 28 Feb 2014
Just wired a donation. Hope it arrives safely.
This should be seeking Charter Challenge money to help.
My suspicion is that Finance would defend this only halfheartedly. They were bullied into it and when its warts are exposed to criticism in court, it should not pass Charter muster. it would be a fine field on which to defeat FATCA.
Start with numbers – there are close to a million impacted Canadians. While the US may claim them as dual citizens, it is certain that almost none of them claim that privilege. It is a mathematical certainty that almost ALL potential dual citizens are non-compliant. Former American citizens are all over the place – they are MP’s,, professors, judges, policeman and yes, Finance bureaucrats. They can’t be identified by their skin colour or accents nor even necessarily by place of birth. The US has been a leading source of immigration to Canada for many, many years (as is normal given proximity and size) and vice versa. This is not a small issue even if many Canadians think it is.
Another number is dollars: if FATCA is successfully used to extort money from Canadians to the US Treasury, that is a net loss, dollar for dollar, to Canada. The same goose cannot be plucked twice and taxpayers who have been shorn of their wool by one taxman will have less wool left for the next. Self-interest if not the Charter dictates that Canada should protect itself.
Requiring Canadians to disclose place of birth or potential foreign claims on them INSIDE CANADA is clear discrimination based on place of birth or nationality. Finance claims that the Tax Treaty will provide privacy protections. That is simply false -there are NO protections for violations of privacy in the tax treaty. CRA can disclose anything to the IRS if it wants. Victims of disclosure are not given advance notice nor any possibility of due process to oppose their being subjected to unwanted foreign harassment based on their lawful activities in Canada. Discrimination, lack of due process – these are but two fatal flaws in the proposed IGA.
Do Canada a favour and support this case!
Axa Banque ferme les comptes de ses clients américains en France !
Le Point.fr – Publié le 06/02/2014 à 17:47 – Modifié le 06/02/2014 à 18:54
Washington a enrôlé de force les banques dans sa lutte contre l’évasion fiscale des Américains. Et à leur charge. En France, des clients en font les frais.
http://www.lepoint.fr/economie/axa-banque-ferme-les-comptes-de-ses-clients-americains-en-france-06-02-2014-1788961_28.php
Please continue to send your testimonials on any difficulties you may have encountered with banks due to being aan American citizen to our website’s secure portal. These accounts are essential for raising awareness about this issue in conversations and hearings with our elected officials.
Another way you can help is by responding to journalists who are increasingly interested in hearing stories of average citizens living abroad who are being affected:
Associated Press’ Adam Geller
National Writer
The Associated Press
450 W. 33rd Street
New York, N.Y. 10001
T: 212-621-6919
ageller@ap.or
USA Today Journalist Kim Hjelmgaard
khjelmgaard@usatoday
@khjelmgaard
CNN Money Journalist Sophia Yan 嚴倩君
CNNMoney – Hong Kong
+852 3128 3247
+852 9170 9285
sophia.yan@cnn.com
Bloomberg Journalist Catherine Bosley
Cbosley1@bloomberg.net
I am willing to send names via IBS, but (rightly or not) there have been some concerns expressed about “outting” US citizens here (tho all the info I have is already quite public).
Ask Pacifica to give you my email and then email me directly; I will then have your email to send you names & details; must be done tonight as busy young grandkiddies arrive tomorrow.
@ChearsBE
For what it is worth (probably not much), AXA is chiefly an insurance conglomerate. They operate globally, so it could be interesting to see whether they close down accounts of US citizens in other parts of Europe, Mexico, India, etc. As I understand it, operating units within AXA are relatively independent of each other.
Yes. we support it. We do want freedom.
The US country is the so-called “free” country and the first one that broke its own human rigths law.
in many ways over decades.
Canadia used to be different.
The new Canadian government has to be different than that as it always was, has to be better than any inmoral and unethical government, and YES uphold our rights! respect our human rigths!
yes, we demand our government place our rights over those of the bully oppressor.
and yes, we want to band together to fight for our rights and freedoms, our constitution.
We demand equallity and the respect that we deserve.
To Wondering,
Why stoop so low as to seek an alliance with the Hell’s Angels? They are a criminal group and I feel we would really be compromising our morals and our credibility if our group were to join forces with theirs.
Cee
Are any of you firearm owners? There is a huge stink over at canadian gunnutz site about the RCMP reclassifying some rifles and the site members are massing a huge campaign of emails and letters etc and have already been able to get this into the limelight. I’m would bet ya there are quite a few dual citizen gun owners on that site which would be appalled to hear about citizen based taxation and fatca.
@Wondering,
Great brainstorming and outside the box thinking, but Hells Angels is definitely a non-starter.
@ Cee
Thanks for comment. It was a provocative suggestion meant to encourage “out of the box” thinking about unlikely sources of support. Also there was the tie-in with their top-gun lawyer, who focused on the principle at stake: the expanded and unlawful use of civil forfeiture to short-circuit due legal process. It popped up in a Google search so I let my imagination ride free.
I am not suggesting that we move forward together closely aligned with the Hell’s Angels. I don’t think that would suit either party’s long-term objectives. But if they wanted to throw some $ to the cause, are we in a position to decline no-strings-attached support from any Canadian who’s inclined to offer?
Let’s face it: FATCA criminalizes thousands of law-abiding Canadians, who because of their US birthplace are now in possession of so-called “illicit undeclared foreign accounts” – even if its an utterly legitimate Canadian personal account the bank down the street from their home or the credit union in the basement of their workplace, or even an insurance policy. Canada’s criminal population has just been re-defined, and that nice teacher in your kid’s school who was born in Buffalo during the 1970’s nursing shortage is now an offshore tax evader whether she knows it yet or not.
As Winston Churchill said: “If Hitler invaded hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”
The Canadian Medical Association lobbied against a FATCA IGA. Some of their members will be among the high net worth individuals most at risk, as they may have investment in non-sheltered accounts over one million dollars. It may be worth at least informing CMA of our initiative. Perhaps they would be willing to share our coordinates with their members, for them to decide as they like whether to buy in to the suit.
@NorthernShrike,
Good idea of adding CMA to the list.
See the link below of letter from CMA to Flaherty. The 2011 letter ends with: “We respectfully request to be kept informed of further developments as discussions with U.S. officials advance.” CMA might not be happy at the way the IGA “negotiation” turned out.
http://maplesandbox.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/CMA-letter-Flaherty-Nov21.pdf
Mr. Em sent his “anonymous” donation today and now I’m blabbing but only to encourage spouses and other affiliates of Brockers to do the same, if possible. 🙂
@Anne Frank
completely agree with ANNE FRANK.
I have been wanting to say the same thing for a long time – I Personally think that the Canadian Gov is just playing politics and they are secretly just waiting for this lawsuit to move forward asap.
they know it won’t stand any constitutional challenge and once this IGA will get tossed out by the supreme court they go back and tell them GO Bully someone else – canada is a nation of laws.
@Anne Frank, Billy: I wish I had your confidence that the Harper Government will not defend a Charter Challenge to the hilt.
As may know, I truly believed that there would be an IGA, but that it would be more in line with the one suggested by Peter Hogg–i.e. that it should apply only to residents of the US with accounts in Canada. I was clearly very wrong about that.
I think now that we’re in this, we must be prepared to be in it for the long haul. The proposed legislation is clear. FATCA will prevail over existing Canadian laws like banking, human rights and privacy. I really did not think we would ever see this day in Canada.
I now believe the Harper government will do whatever it needs to do to drag this out so it is as long, brutal and costly for us as possible in the hope that we will give up because we are drained financially, emotionally and mentally.
The reason I believe that is this story from the CBC on a Nova Scotia aboriginal mother trying to get the same home care for her severely disabled son on reserve as she would receive for him off reserve from the province.
http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/canada/story/1.2489093
The Federal Court ruled in her favour. The federal government is appealing the ruling.
Her lawyer says the government could have funded the care for three years with the money they have spent to date on legal costs. If they win the case, the government is demanding the mother and the Pictou Landing First Nation pay the government`s legal costs.
Her lawyer said: “It sends a message that you better not think about bringing a case against the federal government or if you do, you better buckle up because it’s going to be a multi-year and very expensive fight,”
If you wonder how low this government can go, read the story and you will know.
If everyone trying to raise donations would contact Paul and ask him to send our donation page to all First Nations Lawyers and Chiefs he knows????
pchamp@champlaw.ca
At the moment I am “Due South.” I just mailed a donation in, the stamps are cringeworthy.
I will try to squeeze some more out of the rocks and send more support soon.
Thank you and God Bless.
@ Calgary411:
Here are the US-born Canadian’s names from Calgary that I have found so far in Wikipedia (you can look them up there if you don’t recognize the names; there are still a number of expat-by-occupation pages to still go through).
Not a long list but these folks will be well connected….. Let me know how things go.:
Angel Accevedo
Diane Ablonczy
Cindy Lou Ady
Craig Conroy
Linda Marie Fedigan
Stephen Herrero
Ellen Mcllwaine
Frederick Lee “Ted” Morton
Kenneth John Read
Stephen Waldschmidt
Also, Bill Cowsill Jr (now deceased) – any family that might be FATCA-effected?
Harper
Thanks, LM. I`ll work on this as I can.
Billy Cowsill was a dear friend. I knew him during the time he fought his demons so valiantly with the help of the musical community in Calgary (lots with the Co-Dependents). I got his last US passport renewed for him (while he was ill) so he could travel for a Rhode Island reunion with his siblings (which he didn`t make). If anyone is interested, Dark but Redeeming Story of the Cowsill Family. I`m glad Billy did not have to see this day! Yes, two sons born in Canada — they don`t need this. The rest of his family is in the US. Barry Cowsill perished in the New Orleans hurricane. Susan still lives in N.O. I do know other musicians that come from the U.S. They prefer to think this doesn`t apply to them.
Re: Diane Ablonczy
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/05/03/one-more-free/comment-page-1/#comment-16584
and
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/05/03/one-more-free/comment-page-1/#comment-16580
Tim, comments:
Submitted on 2012/09/15 at 9:50 am
*I know Diane Ablonczy isn’t compliant and is not going to become compliant because she doesn’t believe she is a US citizen and doesn’t have a US Passport however, she doesn’t have a CLN either from what I understand.
No reply back from Ted Morton.
@Calgary411
Eventually these ostrich-with-head-in-sand musicians will have their OMG moment too. Let me know if you contact any of the others.
@pacifica you can send my email to @LM to forward me any names to send a letter or email. I am in Ontario but am happy to track down information for any province or sector. Thanks.
Just read the Cowsill’s article = very sad story indeed…. Thanks for sharing
All:
Just came back from the Post Office this morning where attendant handed me the mail before I had a chance to go to the P.O. box.
Cheques are now coming in and it is clear that a lot of people really care.
[Disclaimer: I know I promised never to provide an update for “strategic reasons” so I must say that this is NOT an update.]