129 thoughts on “Standing Committee on Finance Meeting 35 – May 14, 2014”

1. Kingston is NOT a bank rep. He is from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, FYI

2. If you don’t like what Kingston had to say talk to any of these people who are his membership:

   http://www.ceocouncil.ca/about-ccce/members

3. @All : regarding Bernier: She made the points about privacy and indicated ‘concern’ about probable cause. She also indicated concern about the privacy protections of the entire process of the IGA. She did admit that the IGA is essential a privacy override, and she was asked that specifically, yet she did say they should investigate the necessity of over reporting and how that would expose CRA or banks from breaches of privacy and she did indicate there was a ‘concern’ about Charter violations… a CONCERN?
   Can people not speak in plain unadulterated language?
   Points of significance : IGA was unnecessary to be signed by Canada especially in light of the fact that Treasury has NO authority ( John made that point) to sign even ‘quasi’ treaties and that there is a movement underway in the US to repeal FATCA in it’s entirety.
   Hannah’s point about how the banks have been saved from the 30% sanction is moot since there will be NO reciprocity from the US and the US banking and CU institutions have made that abundantly clear.
   Hence, no need to even talk to the US over FATCA OR ‘negotiate’ with an illegal entity when all they had to say was NO and make it clear that Canadian Citizens and Residents with “US Indicia” would be excluded from any fishing IRS wants to do to impose punitive penalties ( another point John made) This IS what FATCA is all about since it is perfectly clear that any tax owing would be nil under the US Canada Tax Treaty.
   NONE of that comes across in the hearing. NONE of it.

4. @ Blaze
   Sorry. That was an insult to hookers. Hookers have more good standing than an IGA pig. No matter how much the banking industry tries to sugar coat the IGA pill, it will always be poison. Is that better than the hooker thing?

5. The Conservative position was: FATCA is a done deal, we negotiated the best IGA we could, and anyway FATCA is only about information reporting. The tax obligations of US citizens remain, and we can’t do anything about that.

   The reality is: FATCA would explode in the face of the US if they began to impose the 30% withholding on large foreign financial institutions. Canada could have negotiated a much better IGA or have called the US bluff over FATCA by refusing to negotiate one at all. Instead, the Harper government just caved in to the bankers.
   FATCA is about much more than just information reporting. The IGA will amount to the Canadian government assisting the IRS in identifying Canadian citizens and permanent residents who are subject to US tax law. The proper response of the Canadian government and other major governments to FATCA would have been to say, “Until your country changes to residence-based taxation like the rest of us practice, we will not cooperate or assist with your FATCA.”

6. The proper response of the Canadian government and other major governments to FATCA would have been to say, “Until your country changes to residence-based taxation like the rest of us practice, we will not cooperate or assist with your FATCA.”
   @ AnonAnon
   Absolutely!

7. @Em

   I agree with Blaze!

   Yes, they seem testier today. Was it really necessary for them to waste time asking whether Canada was better off with an IGA than it would be without? Such precious little time gone to nonsense. I have tweeted Keddy about his “US citizens know they have to pay tax crap.” Haven’t hit it quite right but will keep at it. If he cannot get it that it is far beyond citizens and green card holders, it is really frightening to realize these guys have determined Canada’s future as the US wrestles more and more of our sovereignty away from us.

   I thought what Kesteren was trying to say about Brock was that we were encouraging people not to be American and then some glibby little thing about Loyalists came up.

   John was the ONLY one who tried to get them to see that there is more impact to consider than the poor little ole banks. IOW, the impact on the one million. Obviously, we have families. The dismissive responses that “that isn’t very many………..” It WILL matter when we actively work to get them out of office. I would LOVE to do another twitter blast with this tweet
   @______No Debate on #FATCA? http://tinyurl.com/mlq95w9 Sneak This Bill Thru? U Will Pay at Polls-1 million of us + families & friends. I got suspended fof doing so many…. and also told that it was clear that I did not understand what was involved……..LOL!

   Once the video is available, those who can should tweet/email the more obtuse of the committee:

   @AndrewSaxton1 – andrew.saxton@parl.gc.ca (Why we are not better off with IGA)
   @GeraldKeddy – gerald.keddy@parl.gc.ca (Duals are still Canadianxs)

   Kesteren only seems to have an inactive Twitter account
   Dave Van Kesteren dave.vankesteren@parl.gov.ca

   did not care for the party line of Mike Allken but today he indicated he does represent a riding of NB that borders upon Maine and has friends in our shoes:

   @mpmikea mike.allen@parl.gc.ca

   I see Adler & Rajotte as somewhat sympathetic (though Rajotte thinks as long as there is CBT, nothing much can be done-why that makes the IGA ok is a mystery to me…)

   @MarkAdlerMP Mark.Adler@parl.gc.ca
   @James Rajotte james.rajotte@parl.gc.ca

   And let us not forget to thank our defenders who seem to care that Canada matters:

   @scottbrison scott.brison@parl.gc.ca
   @nathancullen nathan.cullen@parl.gc.ca
   @MurrayRankin Murray.Rankin@parl.gc.ca
   @GuyCaronNDP Guy.Caron@parl.gc.ca

8. @Blaze said: “Is it fair to say things were testier today than they were yesterday?”

   Yes they were definitely testier today. Yesterday was a really good day for us.

   I bet someone in Washington panicked when they saw what happened yesterday and called the Conservatives to express their dissatisfaction. The Conservatives replied to their US masters, “Yes Master, that was a very bad day yesterday, we won’t let that happen again.” I bet the Cons were putting on a show for the American government to prove how loyal they are to them.

   The war is on. You know you’re getting somewhere when Conservative Canadian politicians are so scared they sound like IRS salesmen.

9. @Em A pig with lipstick has more integrity than the IGA, the banksters or the Cons.

   

10. @All

    I will upload today’s session to our IBS YouTube channel as soon as possible and bookmark John’s excellent presentation.

11. Until Deckard has uploaded to YouTube, IBS, here is where you can access:
    The video is now up – view by clicking this link.

12. “Em says
    May 14, 2014 at 4:55 pm
    @ The Mom
    Mea culpa. I’m a descendant of Loyalists — United Empire Loyalists.”

    @Em, don’t worry, none of us are Canadian enough. My French ancestor came to Canada in the 1600s, and my native ancestors crossed an ice or land bridge about 10,000 years ago. How long must one’s ancestry go back to be Canadia, and not American in Canada?

13. @Calgary

    Thanks for getting that up right away!

14. It looks like the money people protect themselves very well. The government stooges do as well. Sad day for Canada. Yes, we are all dollars, not Canadians when money is involved. This needs so much to be exposed to all minority groups as a reference to show them how Canada would deal with any of their governments when their country comes for them. Their rights, too, would be gone for the right price!

15. The Conservative party’s permanent new slogan should be:

    “Canadians for sale. Name your price. We have all varieties.”

16. John said: “US citizens are defined solely by the United States, today, tomorrow, forever. And that means that who is a US citizen today might not be a US citizen tomorrow.”

    I’d be more inclined to say, given the US penchant for definition creep, that a person who is NOT a US citizen today might be a US citizen tomorrow. Anyway, he was bang on when he said that it is essential that a definition of a US citizen should “never, never, never include any Canadian citizen who is resident in Canada.”

17. Did they get what John Richardson said or did it go completely over their heads?

    “US citizens are defined solely by the United States, today, tomorrow, forever. And that means that who is a US citizen today might not be a US citizen tomorrow.”

    We have only to look at the WARNING of decades ago: “You will lose your US citizenship if you become a Canadian citizen” although these people probably think we’re making all that up. The law changed; people were “given back” their US citizenships. Nobody asked me if I wanted mine back. No one ever told me about a Certificate of Loss of Nationality. Heck, no one ever taught me about US citizenship-based taxation in my years of US schooling. Is there someone I could sue or a US permanent resident could sue for that failure or any other failure of the US to be transparent? I know what I was told about trying to sue for not being able to renounce US citizenship on behalf of my son:

    I could sue – persons he talked with at DOS are SURE no one would ever win such a case as the courts view the discretionary action that DOS has would take precedence.

18. @ calgary41
    The lord of all, the USA, giveth and taketh away, then giveth again and taketh away again. (sigh) It’s whatever suits its purposes at the time. The lord of all, the USA, will define your dog as a US citizen if it puts another nickel in the US Treasury or if it just feels like kicking something innocent, simply because it can.

19. American today American always ‘for tax purposes.’
    And what about those Canadians who have American wives and husbands, and their children, If US SAYS so, they too are ‘US Person for tax purposes’
    And THAT my friends , regardless of what Hannah or Kingston or Keddy et al say, IS a clear violation of Charter Rights and The US Constitution.
    Thank God Bopp gets it and will do something about it.
    We saw today we can count on no one in our government to do what they should be doing to protect Canadians and Canada.

20. Blaze,

    I would, too, have liked to have seen where Dave VanKesteren’s “Is Isaac Brock Society a group of modern-day Loyalists?” was going. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nsdigby/lists/loyalist.htm.

    He was born in Chatam, Ontario, two years after his parents came from the Netherlands. I lived and went to school in Kingston, NY from kindergarten through grade 7 before my family moved to Washington State. It has signficant Dutch history. Most of the Loyalists were of Dutch and German descent and a good many migrated to Canada.

21. Statements from Darren Hannah almost two years ago, May 2012: http://www.thestar.com/business/2012/05/16/canadian_bankers_fight_washington.html

    “We need more time,” Darren Hannah, director of Banking Operations for the Canadian Bankers Association, said Tuesday at a hearing at the Treasury Department on Constitution Avenue not far from the White House. “These regulations are complex, are yet to be finalized and are incomplete.”

    Mr. Hannah needs to give Parliament that same time to effectively study what implementation of the FATCA IGA means for all of Canada and especially the collateral damage to so many individuals and families in Canada — as well as others related to them in some way, spouses, “Accidental American” children, business partners, etc. There is no rush now, Mr. Hannah. Best you all listen to Professors Allison Christians and Arthur Cockfield, as well as Toronto lawyer, John Richardson — and to the opposition MPs who have listened and know much more how this affects Canadians (not banks, real Canadians) than you do. Just what is the big rush now?

22. @calgary411

    I believe that if the USG ever actually tried to enforce any obligations of US citizenship against someone born abroad to US parents, then the courts would have to establish a precedent. I suspect the precedent would be established by someone, perhaps as a test case, defending themselves against an action taken by the USG–as opposed to initiating things by suing the USG. I do know that, at present, standard practice remains that if the parents don’t cooperate, the person born abroad is not treated as a USC–even if technically they are. There is a discussion over on one of the immigration boards right now. It involves a young man of 18 born in Canada to a USC mother and a Canadian father. In this case, he WANTS to establish his claim to US citizenship as he wishes to serve America in the military. However, the mother won’t cooperate by providing the required paperwork meaning that unless and until she changes her mind, he won’t be treated as a USC–and hence won’t be able to serve in the US military.

23. @ Dash1729
    That young man has a very wise mother. He’s lucky to have her.

24. Thanks for pointing that case out. It should be encouraging news to some US Person Abroad families, Dash1729!

    The case is different than my son in that he was born to two US parents in Canada, thus he and his sister were US citizens from the moment of their births here. Of course, I will not register him with the US, the only purpose for which would be his renunciation — which the US will not allow him or a parent, guardian or trustee on his behalf — and he has no more ‘mental capacity’ to do that himself than he would to march into a US Consulate to demand his renunciation. I am as uncooperative as the mother of the young person who wants to claim a US citizenship so he can serve in the US military.

    I was just speculating again the absurdity of it all. Thanks for your comment! It will be added to my file of ‘things I need to consider’ should I be skewered for speaking out.

25. James Jatras was also quoted in that article, Calgary411:

    “James Jatras, a Washington consultant and former U.S. Foreign Service officer who has long followed the issue believes FATCA will change.
    “…There is reason to believe that as those costs become better known the political prospects for FATCA’s enforcement, and those of the international “partnership” agreement, could change significantly.”

    Unfortunately instead of rejection, we’ve seen capitulation.