Today, Lynne Swanson (Blaze) participated as part of a panel on the Finance Committee’s study of Part 5 of Bill C-31 – the Canada-United States Enhanced Tax Information Exchange Agreement Implementation Act (or, as I call it, the Canada-United States Abrogation of Canadian Rights Agreement’.
Essentially, Lynne was invited to speak about FATCA and the IGA. I, for one, admire her bravery and commitment to our shared cause and her willingness to appear before the committee and not only speak, but answer questions from the committee members.
She only had 5 minutes for her opening statement, and then was expected to answer questions from the members of the committee. At the time of this posting, I don’t have a full report on exactly what was said and asked. We will provide that as soon as we can.
What I do have is the speech Lynne prepared in advance. I most sincerely hope that her very eloquent statement fell on receptive ears.
UPDATED LINKS TO THE VIDEO:
ParlVU site: The original ParlVU video
Isaac Brock Society YouTube channel: The entire meeting with links to Lynne, Allison Christians and Arthur Cockfield
Isaac Brock Society YouTube channel: An edited compilation of Lynne’s presentation and her interaction with the committee
Transcript of Lynne’s presentation:
I come before you as the voice of one million Canadians.
We are Canadians. Many have been Canadian citizens for life or for decades. We chose Canada. We expect Canada to choose us and our rights over foreign bully demands.
“Why do our most heinous criminals have more Charter rights than I do,” asks a Nova Scotia police officer of 33 years. He was born in Maine almost six decades ago because his New Brunswick mother was sent there to give birth.
A Quebec woman who has been a Canadian citizen since birth says her ancestor who came to Canada in 1682 must be turning over in his grave at FATCA.
A widowed Grandma in Vancouver was told by US Consulate when she became a Canadian citizen in 1972 she was permanently and irrevocably relinquishing American citizenship. She insists, “My financial records are definitely none of the business of the IRS.”
An Ontario First Nations husband and father is horrified his Canadian government will help United States seize his family’s financial records because his Native Canadian wife was born there.
An Alberta woman reports her mother who upheld Canadian laws for many years as Justice of the Peace is now medically and physically too frail to deal with FATCA stresses.
They and one million other Canadians were betrayed by FATCA Intergovernmental Agreement. We were offended and insulted to hear Minister of State for Finance call us “American citizens abiding here in Canada” in the House of Commons.
If Canada mandated financial institutions to seek Canadians born in China, India, Iran or Eritrea for CRA to transmit private financial information to those nations, there would be outrage.
Canadians born in United States should have the same rights as all other Canadians. Canada should strongly defend those rights and not sacrifice them to a foreign country.
Two prominent Canadians described FATCA well. In 2011 and many times after that, Finance Minister the late Jim Flaherty said “FATCA has far-reaching extraterritorial implications. It would turn Canadian banks into extensions of the IRS and would raise significant privacy concerns for Canadians.”
Terry Campbell, President of Canadian Bankers Association in 2012 called FATCA “the poster child for the problem of extra-territoriality…It threatens to erode Canadian sovereignty.”
Those statements hold true now. Under threat of economic sanctions and penalties, Canada surrendered its sovereignty to a foreign power with the IGA.
Canadians affected by FATCA were stunned last week when a member of this Committee said “Congress has spoken.”
Canadians expect Parliament to speak for Canada. Canadians expect Parliament to uphold Canada’s laws, rights and constitution. Anything less is an affront and betrayal to Canada and to Canadians.
FATCA is complex. I give you a simple solution. I urge you to adopt an amendment to the Implementation Act:
“Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act or the Agreement, for all purposes related to the implementation of this Act and the Agreement, “US Person” and “Specified US Person” shall not include any person who is a Canadian citizen or legal permanent resident who is ordinarily resident in Canada.”
I implore you. Do the right thing. Stand up for Canada and for all Canadians.
Here is the full-day session:
@Lynne, Wonderful Job!! Bravo!! Thank you for all you do!!
Comments regarding Lynne’s good work appearing before the Finance Committee this afternoon, starting at:
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2014/05/08/notice-of-meeting-of-standing-committee-on-finance-34-tuesday-may-13/comment-page-3/#comment-1735180
My thanks, once again, Lynne — you did an excellent job representing one million Canadians worth of collateral damage.
I’m sure Lynne’s words did fall on receptive ears, OutragedCanadian. Thanks for posting!
Brava, Lynne!
You’re a terrific public speaker! It came across so clear that this affects Canadians, and that it’s a sovereignty issue, and you illustrated the real human situation!
Thank you, too, NativeCanadian, for taking Lynne to the hearing venue. And Calgary 411 for posting the text and video.
pacifica,
Calgary411, me, just cross-posted from MapleSandbox — OutragedCanadian’s post. I will post the video here when it becomes available.
Here is video clip of this morning’s National Revenue meeting, in which http://senparlvu.parl.gc.ca/Guide.aspx?viewmode=4&categoryid=-1&eventid=9468&Language=E
http://senparlvu.parl.gc.ca/Guide.aspx?viewmode=4&categoryid=-1&eventid=9468&Language=E (FATCA IGA) :
Subject-matter of Bill C-31 Budget Implementation Act
Noah Arshinoff, Staff Lawyer, Law Reform (Canadian Bar Association)
Robyn Benson, National President (Public Service Alliance of Canada)
Chantal Bernier, Interim Privacy Commissioner (Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada)
Barbara Bucknell, Acting Director, Policy and Research (Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada)
Linda Cassidy, Exclusion and Designation Officer (Public Service Alliance of Canada)
Gregory Thomas, Federal Director (Canadian Taxpayers Federation)
Cyndee Todgham Cherniak, Chair, Commodity Tax, Customs & Trade Section (Canadian Bar Association)
Will have to listen more closely. Human Rights Commission to look at discrimination — we need to stick to our Privacy mandate.
Wonderful, Lynne. Loved how you used quotes from Flaherty and Campbell. Sorry I couldn’t tune in.
I hope the committee appreciated, as we all did, the clarity of Lynne’s presentation. She was excellent in her responses to the member’s questions too. Words can’t express how grateful I am that we finally had someone speaking for us. Not just Lynne, but Prof. Cockfield and Prof. Christians too.
@ calgary411
Thanks for the link to the Senate meeting. Interim OPC — NOT impressed! She just does not get it. “… to proceed with caution to avoid the potential for further scope creep.” That’s it? Cripes! She’s definitely an annointed Harperite. According to her, the USA is a sovereign nation but what about Canada? The senators did ask good questions though.
Bravo Lynne!!! Great opening statement – thank you for the text (I’ll view and savour the rest later). Thanks so much @NativeCanadian for supporting Blaze and transporting her. And to Calgary for posting this.
Kudos Lynne. I feel so proud you and the entire collective for all your heartfelt efforts. Brief and to the point and full of compassion for the victims.
Bravo, Lynne. that was done with skill and precision. Congratulations. and thank you for properly recasting the affects of this travesty on Canadians — not US citizens living in Canada.
Bravo Lynne.
Un grand merci.
It was the most well presented, professionally delivered description of how Canadians feel,live, and want to be treated by their government period! Thanks Lynne. It was my pleasure to accompany you and make sure I got you home before your dad’s curfew… hehe!!!
The Video!
It will be so very handy to have such good records of exactly what the pro-FATCA collaborators say, and how they say it. No wiggle room for the Harper government, and for Conservative MPs. They can’t say they haven’t been told. Despite their efforts to bury the FATCA IGA legislation in a massive omnibill and subvert the democratic process.
It will come back to haunt each and every one of those who voted in favour of the IGA, and who already intend or have been instructed to vote for the enabling legislation – contrary to the interests of a sovereign autonomous Canada.
Would someone please post the link to the people we want to see? I just wasted 1/2 hour watching some crap by Bernier and other people that I formed an immediate hate for as part of my utter disdain for the troglodytes that occupy our government. I cannot stand listening to these creepy people who are looking for every way they can to dodge their responsibility to do the right thing. All I want to do is scream:
Thanks everyone for your comments.
I am blaming the messy hair on Native Canadian. He drove us to the middle of nowhere with the windows down in his van.
Unfortunately, Native Canadian and I were not able to see or hear the panel immeditaley before us. However, Allison Christians was dynamite!!!! It was great to have Arthur Cockfield on side.
I’m glad I didn’t disappoint the proud American Roy Berg with my “rhetoric.”
No one was looking at your hair, Blaze. And, now that I look, it doesn’t look messy. We were looking you in the eye and feeling your fervor in telling some of the stories of a million Canadians and their families. The stories and the outrage that only we know and feel.
Thanks for highlighting the Roy Berg statement. Very disappointing. Jingoistic, hyperbolic rhetoric is in the eye of the beholder, not the victims. Yes, the banks are also victims of all this, but we are the sacrificial lambs to be assessed penalties that drain all we have worked for in our chosen country. Can the Canadian government not put forward an amendment to mitigate the collateral damage to so many Canadian families?
Lynne, you were amazing today. Thanks for making my day!
Blaze, thank you so much – you did a fantastic job.
@Blaze
Many thanks for doing this… u did a wonderful job… And many thanks to the others who stood up for canadians rather then toss us under the bus. Isn’t Mr Berg a US person… not a canadian? Why is he involved in canadians’ issue… like someone mentioned… its like letting the fox in to guard the chickens… why? Again… thank u for doing this… we are so proud of u… btw… your hair looked fine… I only saw the passion in your face about the subject…
lynne
as one of the 1 million canadians effected by fatca all i can say is “thank you” for a job well done!
very good job. 🙂
Just watched the whole video. Two comments:
1. Lynne – beautiful job. You hit them right where you needed to. Sincere, grass roots and they have utterly no response.
2. Cockfield/Rajotte: everyone should take a deep breath. I think the government may have finally had an “aha” moment thanks to Prof. Cockfields’ comments. He pointed out to them that with the IGA, we now have breathing room. Canadian FI’s can register with the IRS but don’t have to turn anything over to the IRS and nothing gets withheld. Prof. Cockfield I think has made a LOT of headway drilling into their head that we can simply amend the implementation act (and they listened to Lynne on that!) or negotiate protection for Canadians off-line. We have months or longer. The fact of the matter is that we are now, ALL OF US, in compliance with this hellish law by virtue of Minister Flaherty’s signature. We may never implement the deal – Prof. Cockfield said, for example, we could simply say “we’ll approve it when you do”. In order to lose the benefit of the IGA, it would be up to the US to REMOVE us from the list of compliant jurisdictions. That would be an act of trade war (as I have mentioned in the past). I think they are starting to get it at Parliament. This was a VERY GOOD DAY. Patience grasshoppers. Things are moving.
@Anne Frank
Unlike the Russian government, who’s being kept out of the IGA. Does this mean it’s preferable to be in the position Canada’s in? This is getting to be like a chess game. I was never good at chess, but I liked watching.
In this chess game the US may have outfoxed themselves. Canada is on the inside now, whether or not Parliament passes the Act. As I have said before, they can’t exactly remove Canada from the list of the saved for not passing the Act when (a) they haven’t passed it themselves; and (b) they have put a variety of countries without an IGA but who are working on one on the list – they can’t exactly strike Canada off just because we are dragging our feet.
The window that opens- and that Rajotte seems now to get – is we might amend the implementation Act or simply announce we will only send data re Us residents. We are in the “exempt” books until they throw us out and that is a dangerous step for them to take. They (our government) might be seeing the light and thinking about options. They don’t want to take on Lynne!
Well, I’m not going to give the Harper government any credit for getting us on the inside, as these Johnny-come-lately concessions by the US were made AFTER the announcement of Bill C-31! I’ll consider it a happy mistake that we may have some protections because of it.