Margaret Wente awakens from her three year slumber

7 thoughts on “Margaret Wente awakens from her three year slumber”

1. Margaret welcome to the real world of FATCA. Why don’t you take the $500 and write a note to the IRS saying instead of paying them, you’re donating the money to the Charter Challenge in Canada.

2. @petros and @don
   I agree with what you both wrote . I commented on the article after logging in. Still waiting for them to show up.

3. Pingback: The Isaac Brock Society | Patrick Cain, Global News, among Canadian journalists covering the *US Person in Canada* as second-class citizen, compliments of the stealth of Conservatives in omnibus Bill C-31

4. Maybe a journalistic slumber, but her emotions appear to have evolved with ours.

5. Remember all the good comments from “studentadvocate”. Here is another excellent one — thanks, student advocate:

   With the FATCA IGA, Harper’s government stripped hundreds of thousands of Canadians of their right to freedom from national origin discrimination. And they did so because a foreign state demanded it. This is the only Canadian law that legislates against a single group of Canadians based upon their place of birth.

   This is a slow motion train-wreck: up to 1 million Canadians are on a collision course with legally mandated discrimination. So far the Harper government has been successful in keeping this out of the news. But now that Canadian rights are actually in practice being violated, the cat is out of the bag (as noted by hundreds of comments to Ms Wente’s article)

   The constituency of so-called US-persons in Canada is large – but heretofore mostly invisible. This will change as they learn the lessons the gay community learned. When Delwin Vriend lost his teaching job due to his sexual orientation, he spoke up and fought back, taking his case to the Supreme Court. His victory enshrined the right to freedom from discrimination based upon sexual preference.

   It is not every day that average Canadians get a chance to participate in dramatically affirming our shared values the way Vriend did. Imagine if 100,000 Canadians stood up and each contributed $100 to take Harper’s FATCA IGA to court in Canada. That is what the Alliance of Defence of Canadian Sovereignty is now doing. If this issue affects you, or your family, or your friends and neighbours, consider taking a stand.

6. I am shocked that there are any us people that are not renouncing..it has Belén here since 2010

7. Peggy, (may I call you “Peggy?), you are a woman approximately my age with a spouse about whom you write with affection and humo(u)r. Does he know that all of his financial information that he shares with you will also be reported? Have you investigated the implications of selling your residence in Toronto? And, just to complete your day, please make sure that you take a look at the joys of being a “covered expatriate” before you make your decision to renounce. The $593.12 in tax that you owe is nothing compared to the mark to market assessment of all of your assets that will come into play on the day of your renunciation. Be careful, be very careful.