The opposition candidates for the 2015 Canadian Federal Election are busy finding office space, gathering volunteers and developing strategies for keeping the seats they have and expelling the Conservative incumbents from those they don’t. Let’s give them some help!
If opposition candidates were Members of Parliament during the past couple of years they probably know about the FATCA IGA that the Conservative government signed with the Americans. It’s been a year and a half since the deed was done and they could probably use a refresher. If they have not been sitting in Parliament they will need to learn from scratch about us and the Conservative sell-out of our Charter rights and financial privacy.
On the continuing page is the cover letter that I have sent to the opposition candidates in my own riding. Attached to the letter is a link to a re-working of my “Introduction to FATCA” that some of you may have read here at Brock. This current version is specifically tailored to an audience of Canadian opposition party candidates.
Please feel free to make use of these materials however you wish in your correspondence with candidates in your own ridings. We can help them win and they can help us regain our status as 1st-class Canadians!
Agreeing to “FATCA”: the Conservative Sell-Out of Citizens and Sovereignty
to the United States
prepared for Opposition Party Candidates in the Canadian 2015 Federal Election
On February 5, 2014 the Conservative government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper passed into Canadian law an agreement with the United States to implement the provisions of the U.S. “Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act” (FATCA). The agreement was buried in the monstrous budget Bill C-31 as Part 5 of that document and does nothing less than strip financial privacy rights from a segment of Canada’s population solely due to their origins in the United States.
It is estimated that a million such persons live in Canada. They are immigrants who have put down roots in this country, have become citizens of Canada and are married to native-born Canadians. They are teachers, doctors, saw-mill workers, bus-drivers, your next door neighbour and maybe your hairdresser. They are ordinary, every-day Canadians who, like so many residents of this country, have come here from somewhere else.
But the country they came from is broke and has recently activated a 100-year-old tax law that few people knew about because it was largely unenforced. The 2010 American FATCA law, and the 2014 Canadian agreement to implement it, allow this relic of the past to reach its tentacles across an international border and be applied here in Canada for the purpose of exposing the financial holdings of a vast number of Canadian citizens simply because they were born in the United States.
This issue has received very spotty attention in the Canadian press many articles reading more like “infomercials” for the IRS. Few, if any, journalists in Canada or elsewhere have recognized FATCA for what it is, United States bully tactics like nothing ever seen before, along with serious human rights implications involved in its implementation. Worst of all, they have completely missed the Conservative government’s sell-out of Canadian sovereignty. FATCA is nothing less than a non-military invasion of our country and worthy of the front page. Yet mentions of FATCA have been relegated to the back pages of the financial sections which the average citizen rarely reads. As a result of the media’s lack of attention the public, and many politicians, are largely ignorant of the Orwellian nightmare in which many of their friends, neighbours and constituents are living.
As a candidate for public service it is important that you have at least some basic knowledge of the situation and why it has come about at this time, unfortunately during the Conservatives’ term of office. If you are elected to the government this October you will surely be dealing with the fallout from the Conservative decisions on this issue. The article at this link will attempt to supply you with the information you need.
@MuzzledNoMore
It’s time to throw out the Conservative incumbent in my BC riding. Thanks for your ideas and cover letter. I will send correspondence to the Liberal and NDP candidates in my riding to remind them of FATCA/IGA enabling legislation buried in Bill C-31. If I hear anything back from them, will let everyone know. Also if candidates have any kind of open house or get together, it can be helpful to attend to discuss this issue. I went to the open house held by the conservative incumbent. Unfortunately, I now have a very clear picture of his views. Very glad that I never voted conservative!
Like PatCanadian — me too. Thanks for putting this together for us MuzzledNoMore. For Albertans you can watch the updates on this site to find out who to contact in your riding:
http://daveberta.ca/federal-election-2015/
Thanks, EmBee, PatCanadian, MuzzledNoMore.
I’ve been in conversation with the Liberal candidate, Matt Grant, in my new Calgary riding, as well as Liberal Kent Hehr in an adjoining riding. Also Dany Allard, the one NDP MP candidate in Calgary, though in not my riding. Hope we will see some more as those candidates are vetted. Thank goodness unresponsive Con Michelle Rempel is not among my choices as the riding boundaries have been changed.
Thanks very much @MuzzeledNoMore. Very good to revisit/highlight that article again – very very valuable summary!
Earlier today, I urged people to pressure federal Liberals https://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/06/24/help-me-keep-my-april-5-promise-revisited-we-will-never-forget-the-iga-betrayal-by-the-cons/comment-page-1/#comment-6272905 (in the case of a Liberal MP for PEI – Sean Casey, a lawyer, who stated his public concern for Canadian sovereignty in the case of the stationing of US law enforcement agents to operate on Canadian soil “..“……….Bit by bit, agreement by agreement, Canada is giving away more and more in the name of trade. To Conservatives, none of this is a threat to our sovereignty, as if the very act of stating so makes it so …”……” http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/sean-casey/border-security-canada_b_3691387.html ). All candidates need to be confronted with either their total inaction on FATCA, or the disconnect between their stated opposition to ceding of Canadian sovereignty and Canadian human and civil rights in other cases (ex. Bill C-51, Beyond the Border, etc.) and their indifference to FATCA or their ignorance re FATCA’s enforcement by the US via extortion of Canada and the Conservative capitulation and ceding of Canadian autonomy via the IGA.
Are there any contacts in the IBS family that has contacts in Canadian radio / TV that might donate some air time for a anti-FATCA advert? Also anyone with experience producing say radio ads and voice overs?
yes, lets throw out the traitors who clearly committed treason against Canadians. The question is, with who? Which party has made a clear PUBLIC statement on the US Threatening Canada with FATCA and what they WILL do about it once elected? We have heard NOTHING publicly stated about the other parties stand against the USA FATCA takeover of Canada. This is what scares me. I tried to get answers from my local MP here Joe Preston. My emails, questions and even appearance in person went unanswered. The best reply I got was a spam letter from some idiot’s office named Joe Oliver who had no clue about FATCA. I want to see these crooked politicians who will not give public answers all thrown out for good. Canada is falling apart, people are being suppressed and nobody seems to give a dam…..
Still no policy statement from the Libs or NDP on the FATCA IGA.
Can’t wait for the day that Gwen and Ginny sock it to the Harper FATCA IGA!
@bubblebustin & Others
You may recall ADCS wrote to the Leaders of all parties and several MPs in March.
http://maplesandbox.ca/2015/fatca-letter-to-leaders-and-mps/
We had no replies. I followed up a few times and tweeted. Finally, yesterday a letter arrived from Justin Trudeau. You can read it:
http://maplesandbox.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Reply-Trudeau.pdf
As you can see, it is a reply, but no answers.
He thinks reporting to CRA instead of banks reporting to IRS “was a positive step.
Included in the letter is:
Inadequate? Insufficient? We knew that. What we do not know and want to know is what the Liberals will do.
Here is an e-mail I just sent to Kate Young, the Liberal candidate for my riding:
I hope others have more success with their candidates than I have had with mine. I know Kate personally and have met with her on this issue. You can see where the Liberals stand (or rather don;t stand) on FATCA from JT’s letter.
My NDP candidate tells me he understands because his wife was born in the U.S. But he has failed to tell me what an NDP government would do about FATCA.
Murray Rankin’s Assistant has been telling me for weeks that they are drafting a reply to our letter. Still waiting….
http://www.amnesty.ca/blog/this-is-not-the-canada-i-once-knew
Stephen Harper and The Canadian Banking System
Is Canada the next Greece??
The new Canadian and all of the Western countries introduced laws which are already in effect to protect the greedy banks failures and mismanagement.
These new laws puts your bank deposits, pension and possibly insurance money at risk.
Stephen Harper and The Canadian Banking System
Betty Krawczyk
Published on Jun 23, 2015
(One commenter says: Banksters called out by elders.)
Democratic and fair elections in Canada?
http://www.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=644945
Notes the connection between FATCA and the
http://www.thor.ca/blog/2015/07/canadas-anti-terrorism-laws-and-taxes-whats-the-connection/
‘Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Laws and Taxes – What’s the Connection?’
“The short answer to the question of the connection between Canada’s new anti-terrorism laws and taxes is that recent amendments to the Income Tax and Excise Tax Acts which arise through the Anti-Terrorism Act permit more extensive disclosure and sharing of private and confidential taxpayer information. The longer answer is that this is part of a trend of CRA offering greater levels of cooperation and assistance with other agencies, both domestically and internationally, with the result that the phrase, “except as authorized by law”, which qualifies the prohibition upon disclosure of taxpayer information has once again grown in scope. “………….
Yea, the silence is more than deafening, isn’t it, Blaze?
Thanks for sharing that letter from Trudeau with us Blaze. That plus the Liberal support for Bill C-51 makes tells me to get ready for further backtracking and betrayal if they come to power. What tepid terms to use – “inadequate”? No, it is totally unacceptable and insupportable. They’ll make sure the Cons get the blame while leaving the FATCA IGA in place. Like with NAFTA and the GST. I’m surprised he didn’t say they’d have to ‘study it’. And the line about the ‘positive’ aspect of the banks reporting to the CRA is right out of the CBA playbook.