UPDATE SEPTEMBER 19, 2015: SEE ALSO DISCLAIMER AND LITIGATION UPDATES.
[This post, which began in May and having over 1000 revisions and 2000 comments, is being retired from service and updates. It lived through the success of reaching a total of $500,000 in donations from our kind, dear supporters who had little money to give, the hope and disappointment with the summary trial decision, and the certainty that we are now finally moving on to the Charter trial.]
CANADIAN CHARTER TRIAL UPDATE:
— We have instructed the Arvay team to prepare for the “Constitutional-Charter” trial. This means that our focus now, as it was in the beginning of our lawsuit, is on the Charter trial.
Unless there is a new expense in the future that we have not anticipated, the monies from your donations will be sufficient to take us through the “constitutional-charter” trial in Federal Court. However, to pay other legal bills we will need additional donations from our supporters, and a request for donations will appear on another post soon.
OUR LITIGATION HISTORY:
One year ago, on August 11, 2014, Litigator Joseph Arvay filed a FATCA IGA lawsuit in Canada Federal Court on behalf of Plaintiffs Ginny and Gwen, the Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty (en français), and all peoples.
Because of a Government delay we initiated a “summary trial”, using a portion of the arguments, which offered the possibility of preventing private banking information from being turned over to the IRS before September 30, 2015. See Alliance’s Claims, our Alliance blog, and AUGUST 4-5 SUMMARY TRIAL FILINGS in LITIGATION UPDATES.
bubblebustin — in fact, everyone,
I hope you’ve read John Richardson’s Day 2 update at https://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/08/05/from-adcssovereignty-fatca-lawsuit-is-underway-thoughts-on-day-1-and-more/.
Yes I did, Calgary, first thing!
In fact, Justice Martineau let “dual” slip a couple of times, but I felt at least he was trying to make the distinction by referring to us as only Canadian- US citizens.
And yes, thank you to ALL in attendance and to those covering us for afar. I love the bingo game! Did anyone call BINGO?
I am gonna donate $50 CAD for every decent quote…the govt lawyers rang my first donation bell today per Ginny (paraphrase)
“we dont know who is taxable so we send it all to USA and they decide”
Actually the govt lawyers stole this from a Cistercian monk 806 years ago -at the Massacre of Beziers in 1209 AD in the Albigensian Crusade….”kill them all. God will know his own”.
Note to Govt Lawyers: please keep it up. every horlicks means more money for ADCS !!!!!!!!!!!! wheeee!!
I want to compose some thoughts for later comments about the wonderful John Richardson’s post- although I did comment briefly@Maple Sandbox, but let me say this about the Bingo game.
I am sorry that some people were offended and thought that I was treating this too lightly. That was never my intention at all. I am a plaintiff as is Gwen, and seeing that we are personally facing and solely responsible for paying costs awarded against us, I can assure you I hardly approach this law suit lightly.
If I offended anyone for trying to demonstrate through a game analogy how predictable I expected the government’s submissions to be, I apologize for any offense that created.
Each of us has hopefully, found a way to manage the terrible impact this has had on our lives and families.
My coping strategy is humour. I knew we were all feeling tense as the hearing was taking place and while we couldn’t be there.
Most importantly, if you have felt insulted, I urge you not to include my wonderful co- plaintiff and direct your criticism just to me. She was merely giving me her observations which I used, I thought, to lighten things up or to demonstrate to you what the Government lawyers were saying about us in a court of law. I can assure you she is one of the finest people I have ever met, and the voice of the Bingo game was solely mine.
And by the way, I won the game but I expected several of us would.
@Ginny:
Well, I do NOT know who was ‘offended’ but to me, by all that is Holy, your comments and attempts to make it entertaining were absolutely appreciated and , frankly, could have enjoyed much more.
How ANYONE could be insulted when it is YOU and Gwen who are personally affected and on behalf of perhaps more than two million people are taking on quite the personal financial and emotional risk.
I simply cannot convey in words my appreciation of THAT.
Thank YOU, Gwen, The entire legal team and ADCS. Everybody who is working SO hard.
What offends ME is that others are offended at all by anything you had to say and comment yesterday. Thank God for brevity in times of intense stress.
God Bless you, Ginny!
Ginny,
What?
You have NO need to apologize on my account. How would I have gotten through two days of not being able to be in Vancouver. It was, for me, the very appropriate way to release some of the emotions I was feeling with a little BINGO humour. Again, no reason!! Thanks to Gwen for passing on information to you and you passing it on to us. I don’t think that it in any way took from the seriousness of what was occurring in federal court on the west coast of this country. Thank you once again, Ginny!!
I am indebted to you and Gwen for that humanness as well as for the courage you have of putting yourself out there for all of us.
Bravo, Ginny!!
Bravo, Gwen!!
@ Ginny Hillis
I don’t think anyone was offended by the BINGO game. It was a tense time and your valuable insights were welcomed in whatever form you presented them. The very familiar world of the courtroom to you is a foreign affair to many like me and any which way someone helps me suss this whole thing out is welcomed. You, John and all the attendees who sent updates and later gave us their impressions are ALL appreciated by me and everyone else tuning into BROCK these past few days. Everyone stay strong … and for Pete’s sake (who is that man anyway — Petros?) keep your sense of humour!
@Bubblebustin
Great that you got us some media coverage. A few years back, many of us never even had the thought that we would see the day when there was a (FATCA) “law allowing Ottawa to give info to U.S. tax collectors”. No one knew, on morning of August 4, if the trial was even going to go forward. When there is a decision from the Judge, hopefully in our favor, that might be a point to be prepared for more media coverage. Perhaps some of us could get together on this before September 13? Maybe there would be a press release from ADCS at that time.
What?!?
“You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honour.” (Aristotle)
You and Gwen are courage and honour personified.
I didn’t think we would get all the “live” updates we did yesterday; thought maybe some word at lunch break and end of day. I was surprised and really appreciated hearing more — and Ginny’s comments from a lawyer’s perspective certainly helped.
@calgary — Typo. You need to add a “no” to your first sentence — “no need”.
@ Ginny,
All of your reporting, from your insights to the bingo analogy/game and everything else about it, was super and I very much appreciated all of it! And of course, you and Gwen have put yourselves right on the front line by being the plaintiffs in this case — so no way I could be offended or think either of you were taking this matter as anything less than deadly serious.
Personally, throughout this dismal mess, starting pretty close to my OMG day, I’ve found a bit of lightheartedness something that’s probably helped keep me in balance and definitely in no way detracted from the utter seriousness of the situation.
Thank you very much, Ginny and Gwen, for your courage!
Thanks, canoe. I found that and have corrected! It could not stand without the NO.
Good night, can’t believe it — so wonderful having Ginny with us the past two days!!!!
I can think of two goverments I’d like to use a Bingo dabber on… lol
Loved the bingo yesterday, Ginny. We have to laugh, if we don’t we’ll cry. Again.
Dear and wonderful brockers….I am watching “the shot heard round the world”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-A9Nq1v-yk&feature=youtu.be
I can only watch a few minutes at a time and I dissolve and turn to Patrick Henry
http://www.nationalcenter.org/GiveMeLiberty.html
reciting it to memorise it along with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_taxation_without_representation
I am prouder than I can say to continue to support IBS/ADCS which calls to mind the BARD
http://nfs.sparknotes.com/hamlet/page_138.html—we are not asleep.
Dylan Thomas would be proud of IBS which “do[es] not go gentle into that good night,
Rage[ing] against the dying of the light” .all of you– and all of us— are the true Americans.
God(dess) bless you all
@Mom:
LOL, yes indeed. Two governments Bingo Dabbed!!
Love it.
@Ginny
I cannot believe that anyone was offended by the stress relieving mechanism of humour. I personally thank you and Gwen for the feed and the “connectedness” that was felt around the world. As one famous Reggae musician once sang ….. One Love, One Heart, Lets Get Together Now and Feel Alright.
Not really on topic, but sometimes some black humor helps, and one of my favourite Dilbert cartoons came to mind.
http://dilbert.com/strip/1997-03-29
nervousinvestor and all,
Also, thanks for Standing by Me / Each Other, wherever we reside in this big world — all, ADCS-ADSC, Brockers, Sandboxers, etc. and the big PLUS of the Arvay team that so well in Vancouver represented us and what we have been trying so hard to say all this time:
@ Ginny… I don’t believe that an apology is necessary!!! After everything that both of you have gone through, I get the humor. Humor is necessary to keep from being overwhelmed by the “what if ?” I am sorry that some might be insulted, but I ask them this “Could you walk a mile in their shoes?”
@ Ginny I can’t believe anyone was offended by the BINGO game. I found it humourous and demonstrated the predictability of the defense. I saw it as an attempt to lighten things up a little. Thank you so much for your informative posts and for forwarding Gwen’s observations.
@ crystal london
Some of us aren’t Americans (past or present) but we’re all in this together. 😉
@ Blaze
I can understand the judge not knowing about the FATCA data ending up at any 2-bit, 3-letter agency in the USA which deems itself to possess “a need to know”. But like you, I think anyone who has read for awhile at Brock and the Sandbox would be aware of this. Of course the Canadian media and 99.999% of the Canadian population aren’t aware either so I slipped in a little heads-up at Metro News.
http://metronews.ca/news/vancouver/1445874/two-women-challenge-law-allowing-ottawa-to-give-info-to-u-s-tax-collectors/
There have been lots of thanks expressed to lots of people on or connected to the ADCS team but I noticed that both Maple Sandbox and Brock held up the past few days to what was probably an increase in traffic. There are people that make this happen and lots of thanks to them too. I would love it if Petros would venture in with some words of wisdom. Could there be an applicable parable? I believe our Just Me is still on his long trek but it would have been great to have had him around too.
I posted something in this article regarding tonights federal debate…http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-debate-list-aug6-1.3180139
You’re absolutely right, EmBee. Kudos to Petros and others in the background who provide this platform for us to gather at. Petros’ posts are always a bonus!
There is one heck of a lot of volunteer time and money and expertise that allows us to converse at this site!
Offended by a BINGO game? I take offense to being called a “tax cheat” by a Canadian govt. lawyer when in fact I pay my taxes and hence his salary. The person who takes offense to a bit of humour needs to lighten up. I picture Roy Berg flying around the court room because that’s what condors do, trying to add his 2 cents worth of advise to govt. lawyers/employees. It’s no wonder the govt. lawyer/employee felt sorry for the judge because our govt. doesn’t get it either. Keystone Cops anyone?
Thanks Ginny and Gwen for putting your lives on the line. Thanks to all who took the time and interest to show up at court. Many thanks to our team of lawyers who deserve our sincere gratitude for all the time, effort and work involved in this most complicated affair.