[We now have a NEW POST taking us up to February 1, 2015. This post will be retired from service.]
THE AUTUMN 2014 UPDATE
Dear Donors,
Together, we reached our goal of $100,000 to pay the November 1 legal bill 11 days ahead of schedule!
Thank you Canadian donors from coast to coast and our friends from around the world for your generosity, support and determination — and especially for not being afraid.
The name of our non-profit corporation is the “Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty.”
We were very deliberate in including in our name the word “sovereignty”, which forms a cornerstone of our Claims against the Government of Canada.
Canada and dozens of other countries throughout the world gave into a bully because their “leaders” were afraid of harm caused by a trading “partner” — and they gave their sovereignties away.
Help us convince by example the Leaders and Governments of all countries worldwide that they should return their sovereignties back to their Peoples.
Please continue to support our lawsuit.
“Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.” (Helen Keller)
— Plaintiffs Ginny and Gwen, and the ADCS-ADSC team
Chers donateurs,
Ensemble, nous avons atteint notre but d’amasser 100 000 $ pour payer notre facture légale du 1er novembre 11 jours d’avance !
Un gros merci à vous, donateurs canadiens, et à nos amis de tous les coins du monde pour votre grande générosité, soutien et détermination. Et surtout pour votre courage.
Le nom de notre organisme sans but lucratif est « l’Alliance pour la défense de la souveraineté canadienne ».
Nous avons choisi délibérément le mot « souveraineté » puisqu’il constitue la base fondamentale de nos revendications envers le gouvernement du Canada.
Le Canada et des dizaines d’autres pays se sont pliés devant l’intimidation des États-Unis parce que leurs « leaders » ont eu peur des menaces de notre « partenaire » commercial. Ils ont donc vendu leur souveraineté à rabais.
Aidez-nous à convaincre les dirigeants et les gouvernements de tous ces pays qu’ils se doivent de remettre leur souveraineté à leurs peuples.
S’il vous plaît, continuez à soutenir notre cause.
« Seuls, nous pouvons faire si peu. Ensemble, nous pouvons faire beaucoup. » (Helen Keller)
— Ginny, Gwen et toute l’équipe de l’ADCS-ADSC
DONATE to www.adcs-adsc.ca (ADSC en français).
@dash
Perhaps it is time that you got a grip yourself. Isaac Brock Society is purely grass roots. It is raw uncensored people with an unwanted “US person” scarlet letter tattooed on their foreheads. They express themselves freely and try to help one another the best they can on this open forum.
As far as stakeholders go, there are 1 million in Canada alone and another 6 million scattered across the globe. But you already know that.
What you are trying to do here now is to blackmail people into saying and doing things your way. It ain’t gonna happen my friend.
So I will tell you what, I am now going to DOUBLE my planned contribution to the ADSC fund. Also, I have never burned a flag before, but I am going to do it now, just for you!
Throw some extra excellerant on pour moi and let’er blow, Joe Blow!
I believe the ADCS/ADSC does have persons with their energies focused as the non-profit organization’s first priority for maintaining a sovereign Canada is challenging the discrimination by extra-territorial U.S. law coming into Canada to remove several rights for persons deemed *US Persons*.
Tomorrow about (I think more than) one million US citizens and their families become second-class to any other Canadian, no matter where that other Canadian might have been born or what that other Canadian’s parents’ national origin. We cannot benefit from registered accounts that all Canadians are encouraged to save with for retirement, education, disability nor from Canadian mutual funds.
Dash, I am on the Board for the ADCS because of my commitment to this cause and, of course, as my name has been revealed. You may be offended by what I say on Isaac Brock as well, but I am offended that an immoral law entraps my son into US citizenship and its consequences and I do not have the right to renounce my son’s automatically-obtained, never-registered US citizenship, even with a court order. I don’t have a whole lot of years left to fight the absurdity of anything that should go to my children going to the US instead.
At this moment I have lost trust in any kind of government representation, either from the USA or from my chosen country, Canada. No one heard to my pleas — save the Opposition, the only with common sense and respect for the persons FATCA violates. Unfortunately, Canada has a majority Conservative government who voted in concert with their leader — it is proven to me a government of management, not of democracy for its people.
I will continue the fight and advocacy for my son and all others like him, as well as for other “Accidental Americans” who had no choice in where they were born or who they were born to. That I have brought this US curse onto the children I brought into this world haunts me every day. I continue the fight with my participation in ADCS, contributing the little I can and encouraging other Canadians (not only those with a US indicia) to stand up for this country and its peoples’ rights.
It is hard being the only white guy in a room full of black guys, no matter how much you empathize with the black guys….just saying.
Tilt on the Pinball Machine !!!
Protocols start looking putrid when two Brockers get into a back-and-forth and one of the Brockers possesses, and uses, a power that the other Brocker does not have:
the power to suppress comment.
@Dash, I can understand your feelings concerning the flag. A small number here know my background and with that knowledge if they had to guess would think I would be appalled by anyone thinking of burning the flag.
But today, I am not appalled and might think that the founding fathers of the United States might not be appalled either.
So I neither condemn nor do I condone.
Peace
One little more addition…………..
I have no doubt that on other political and social issues, there are some Brockers who I have little in common with.
But on THIS issue, we absolutely must stand together.
I am the administrator at Isaac Brock. I am not on the board of ADCS and I wasn’t even asked to be on it. Pacifica is the comments editor. She is not on the board either.
I started the Isaac Brock Society. It is just a website where people discuss US extraterritorialism–we fight the US with blog posts and we fight by providing space for ADCS–but we are not ADCS.
Flag burning is a non-starter. Few people place much symbolism in flags. It’s something around here that people put up in their cars to support their favorite world cup team. I find that potentially offensive. But I’m not going to say anything to my neighbors. Heck, there’s a French flag flying at the end of my street. But I’m keeping my mouth shut.
By the way, I am hoping that Belgium kicks the snot out of the US. Dash, if you want to withhold your donation, because I’m supporting Belgium instead of the United States, well I wouldn’t be surprised.
Petros, this is for you: https://www.facebook.com/PierreKroll . I would love to see our Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo reply as follows: “@barackobams, repeal FATCA and citizenship-based taxation if we win!”
Jane, good idea. Actually, I have a good chance of winning the world cup: As long as anyone else wins, and not the United States, I win.
@Dash: Full disclosure: I am the co-founder and co-administrator of Maple Sandbox. I am not a member of the Board of ADCS, but I am very active with ADCS as the Chair of the legal challenge.
You suggest people need to focus their energies. For three years, I have spoken out. I have written letters. I have participated in Open Letters from Brock and Maple Sandbox. I have written articles that have appeared on both sides of the border and in international tax journals .I have been interviewed by media for articles on both sides of the border. I testified before the House of Commons Finance Committee, I worked with Deckard to produce the ADCS video about the Finance Committee.
In 2012, along with Tiger and Somerfugl, I did a consultation with Joe Arvay. This year, along with Stephen Kish, Gwevil and Tricia, I helped raise funds for a legal opinion. Stephen and I retained Mr. Arvay and reviewed his legal opinion before deciding to proceed with a legal challenge.
I organized one of John Richardson’s information sessions. I have listened to good, honest people–(including a couple in their 90s who have been Canadian citizens for over 60 years who can’t physically travel to Toronto to apply for a CLN and who are not online)–who are devastated by FATCA.
I know people previously active at Brock who have serious medical problems they believe are caused by the stress of dealing with FATCA. I know of strained marriages and at least one divorce because of FATCA. I know people who have contemplated suicide.
I have spent endless hours connecting with and informing people through Sandbox and trying to help them work through the many issues FATCA has brought to their lives.
There have been positives. I have done something I never thought possible. I have made friends across Canada and around the world whom I have never met.
I mourned the death of Arrow, who was an amazing support to me when I first found Brock in January 2102 and who helped us with projects along the way.
I have been public with my name and identity for over a year. I worried what this would mean to my ability to travel to the U.S. to visit my 90 year old mother in frail health. I worried I might be prevented from entering the US for her funeral in January because of my US place of birth and the public stand I have taken on FATCA.
When I passed under the Canadian flag on the Peace Bridge returning from her funeral, I resolved to never again travel to the U.S to visit other family, friends and my Pennsylvania hometown village because of what FATCA has done to me and the terror the US has instilled in me.
A month later, the betrayal was complete when Canada announced the IGA and I became a second class Canadian in the country I love.
After all of that, I’m planning on engaging in some USA and FATCA bashing at my home on the Fourth of July along with others–including Native Canadian. We will not be burning an American flag, but I certainly understand why Native Canadian and one other person who are at the end of their rope over what FATCA has done to them and their families want to. In fact, I think burning a flag is minor compared to what FATCA does to real people.
You may object to USA bashing. I object to a foreign government financially terrorizing honest people for committing the “crime” of having legal bank accounts where they live, work, earn an income, raise families, own homes, vote, volunteer and pay taxes.
FATCA entered my life shortly after I began early retirement for medical reasons (multiple sclerosis) three years ago. Ever since, I have lived with feelings of violation by the United States and later feelings of violation and betrayal by Canada.
Like you, I have life experience (as does everyone else here). Badger may have seen me when she watched some of those Vietnam protests of the 1960s. I lost a cousin in Vietnam. My childhood sweetheart, who was a Vietnam paratrooper medic, still has PTSD. One high school friend committed suicide shortly after returning and a classmate came home without his legs.
One of my best friends was a student at Kent State when the National Guard opened fire and killed four students at a protest. Her family and friends were terrified for hours until she called her parents several hours later to let them know she was OK.
I watched the World Trade Center being built near my work in lower Manhattan. Daily, I walked past signs of construction workers: America: Love It or Leave It. After all the above experiences, I didn’t love America. So, I moved to Canada as a “spiritual draft dodger” (Thanks Arrow for the term).
I applied to become a Canadian citizen the day after i was eligible. I believed the US Consulate when they told me i was “permanently and irrevocably” relinquishing US citizenship by becoming a Canadian citizen. I upheld my end of that deal. I have lived my life for 41 years as a Canadian citizen only. Yet, now that I am in early retirement with lifelong savings, the US wants to reclaim me and my money.
I certainly did some USA bashing in the 1960s and early 1970s. I will continue to do it now because the United States is bashing us-and doing far worse.
I will also remain focused on the goal of raising money to support our legal challenge.
I hope you will try to understand the absolute devastation FATCA has had on people’s lives and how everyone reacts differently. I also hope you will support our legal challenge fund to try to defeat FATCA in Canada.
Lynne Swanson
@Petros: Stephen’s Republican friend Ann Coulter gives nine reasons why “any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation’s moral decay.”
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-06-25.html
Blaze (Lynn): Nicely said. I didn’t know Stephen knew Ann. Do you think he could introduce us? LOL.
I should have said that I started the Isaac Brock Society with five other Canadians. None of the originators of this blog are on the board of ADCS, ni l’ADSC. There is no legal tie between Isaac Brock Society and ADCS: for one thing, the Isaac Brock Society doesn’t really exist as a legal entity. It is just a website where people have the privilege of expressing their opinion (provided they don’t abuse it), even under a pseudonym.
@Petros: Stephen is friends with all the Repubs, but I still like him, will work with him on the legal challenge and will donate to the legal challenge fund,
Stephen delights in seeing my name on the Republicans Overseas website. Likewise, I love seeing his name on the Green Party website and hearing NDP Murray Rankin thank Stephen for all his efforts.
Blaze,
What a way to start FATCA/Canada Day with your strong statement on why we are fighting for rights for ourselves and for others. There are some of us here from the Vietnam and Civil Rights times of our awakening to what “RIGHTS” mean, having lost family and friends being drafted into the hell of Vietnam and seen buses full of brave persons travelling through many states to stand up for civil rights. They have always been my heroes. My own family was only one of those torn apart, one brother lost to suicide after serving four years and the other brother lost to living on the streets for many years after his service to his country. I also lost a cousin in Vietnam and will never forget the day of taps and the flag being folded and handed to his mother — the American flag an exchange for his life, sacrificed for his country — I couldn’t understand it at the time and I still don’t. But then, I hate glorification of any war.
So, thanks from me and all of my family for standing up for RIGHTS — in the country in which we’ve chosen to live, the rights of all Canadians enumerated in this country’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Thanks for persevering in getting from the start of this several years ago to where we are now — having to raise an enormous amount of money to pay for the right to defend our rights and the rights of those without a voice. Bizarre for *US Persons* in Canada and bizarre for Canada to be placed in this position. By extension, bizarre for all *US Persons* wherever they may reside abroad — as real *tax evaders* go free and we are called traitors to the homeland.
To be part of this challenge for preservation of our rights with people I respect so much, many of whom I will never meet in person, has in such an unusual way put real meaning to my 70+ years.
George put it well: https://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2014/06/01/its-time/comment-page-21/#comment-2132324:
—See Tricia’s post in today’s Globe and Mail article.
It is an important article (page 10 in print edition) because this is a respected national Canadian newspaper and the article states that a constitutional challenge is in fact “in the offing” and specifically identifies the group as the “Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty (ADCS)” — ADCS needs more of this national exposure.
John Richardson (ADCS co-chair) and a Canadian who would be harmed by FATCA are quoted.
https://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2014/07/01/globe-mail-group-plans-constitutional-challenge/
May be a paywall around this: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/group-plans-constitutional-challenge-to-budget-bill/article19399762/
—However, in the same July 1 edition there is a letter to the editor from a Canadian who renounced U.S. citizenship who feels that “Washington’s position” on citizenship based taxation is “clear”, “quite reasonable” and “fair” and goes further by saying that “It might make sense for Canada to do the same.” Perhaps some of you might wish to comment online on this letter.
However, there is a second letter to the editor which begins with the correct and very helpful statement that “Many Canadian citizens whom the U.S. wants to call dual citizens are not.”
—Petros, the fact that Stephen, with his conservative leanings, is sometimes tolerated on this website shows, as we all know, that the Isaac Brock Society welcomes real diversity.
[Peter, send me a private email and I will try to set something up with Ann.]
WOW!! I’ve been working mu butt off at work and not around for a few days here. first off let me say this to Dash, The idea of burning a US flag was to simply infuriate American homelanders to feel every bit of anger that I am feeling right now. This will MAKE them open their ears and minds to see what this law is doing to people born in the USA. While burning a flag is a terrible thing to do, what other options are working? The governments have our media silenced, Canada was threatened by our “friend” to the south, we have all incredible anger towards the USA for it’s flagrant disregard for ALL other country’s laws around the world period!! Why? because they are abusing their powers in this world. The very morals and human rights(land of the free) that started the USA are being forgotten by the current government. I have stated before that it is not the “people” of the USA doing this as most have no idea what their government is doing. Canadians for the most part, have no idea of the treason that was just committed by their government as well. Ask yourself a question here, would you prosecute and put in jail someone you know was innocent? This is how we all feel here. The “US government” has shown they are not friendly to anyone in their desperation for money, this is a fact shown by their threat of sanctions. As I stated, burning a flag is one final attempt to piss people off to open their ears and minds to this. I will not burn the flag if it means harm to the ADCS challenge fund, this is counterproductive, however, I bet there would be Canadian flags burned in the USA if Canada FORCED this on them, if we had their powers to do so!
If anyone wants to join Native Canadian, Somerfugl and me for lunch at my condo in London Ontario, please e-mail me at maplesandbox at yahoo dot ca.
NativeCanadian, burning the USA flag is so cliché. We should do something really radical, like throw someone else’s medals over a fence. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=123495
But that was the candidate who ran for president, wasn’t it. John Kerry. But for some reason, he’s still considered respectable.
P.S. That above comment should have said that lunch at my condo is on the Fourth of July. There will camaraderie, mutual support–and some FATCA and USA bashing.
We will not be burning a flag in my condo. It is not safe and it would set off the fire alarms.
Happy Turtle Island Day one and all.
http://www.turtleisland.org/front/front.htm
Seeing as Canada no longer recognizes me as solely Canadian, I have decided to spiritually divorce Canada. In an early morning ceremony I opened my front door and mooned Canada. I will now pledge allegiance to Turtle Island.
@Blaze I see all the hysteria surrounding sporting events as means of creating widespread arrested development, it dumbs down the population so they won’t pay attention to how their government is screwing them over.
The tyrannical US gov’t and traitorous Canadian gov’t have deemed me to be “persona non grata” so hereafter I deem July 4th and July 1st to be “dies non grata”. I won’t be burning flags on those days but I will never again feel like celebrating.
“Oh Canada- our bought and sold out land”