WITNESS SEARCH UPDATE FOR CANADIAN FATCA IGA LAWSUIT:
WE STILL SEEK MORE CANADIAN WITNESSES:
Have you experienced marital stress or breakup, or medical or psychiatric illness because Canada turned you and your family over to a foreign country — or because you were afraid and entered into IRS compliance and suffered harm, or because you are in “hiding” and can’t afford to be IRS compliant or to renounce? Be a witness.
No single witness will be “perfect” from a litigation point of view. We will be seeking more witnesses (almost) right up to the time of submission of court documents. Your specific situation, that we cannot predict, might have unique characteristics that would be helpful in the lawsuit.
If you cannot be a witness, please tell a friend who you think might be interested.
— If you are interested in becoming a witness You will describe your harm in a written affidavit which will be made public and you can contact me at stephen.kish.chair@adcs-adsc.ca See our website at www.adcs-adsc-ca
FOR THOSE CANADIANS WHO ALREADY VOLUNTEERED: Unless you have already been informed by me or by our legal team that you will not be a witness, there is still the possibility — or (for some) likelihood — that you will be asked to be a witness. I’m sorry but I cannot estimate the time it will take for our legal team to get back to you with their decision. This is because they need to “mesh” the characteristics of all of the necessary witnesses and testimonies with the actual detailed submission that contains the entirety of their evidence, which are all still evolving. Please be patient in our getting back to you with a decision. Thank you for your help.
Thank you Muzzled No More. The IBS community has so often helped me get through. I am grateful.
The April 14th video is now available at ParlVu and here at Brock: https://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2016/04/18/april-14-2016-canadian-parliament-ethi-standing-committee-on-access-to-information-privacy-ethics/
@Cheryl @MuzzledNoMore
Thank you both for putting it so well. Our lives as responsible Canadian taxpayers, contibuting members of society, responsible parents, and respected individuals in our fields has now been replaced by our new designation as US tax evader.
That’s the kind of identity crisis that causes people to contemplate suicide, when their lives are completey devalued in one moment. It’s McCarthyism again.
As I’ve said for so long – FATCA treats all other nations as tax havens, and all US citizens living outside the US as tax evaders. This presumption is the root of the problem and is what makes FATCA so evil.
My understanding of the application process is that if you fill out the online form then the application will go to the US for processing, and they will register you as an American.
If you fill out the paper form and mail it in then it gets processed by the Canadian government. I would expect the registration would then be be as a Canadian.
I registered on line after I renounced so my Nexus card was issued by the US as a Canadian.
Well that explains it, Just a Canadian! Thanks for the info. My husband does everything online. Would have been better to have left it to his Luddite wife!
Not sure where this will go, but I do have a college friend who got elected this past election and we just had a very frank discussion about FATCA and its implications.
It was off-the-record, and he can’t do anything overt, but he did say that he would try and talk to his colleagues behind the scenes to see what, if anything, could be done. He mentioned that the Finance committee is interested in studying this again in the near future.
He’s obviously sympathetic, and he admitted that he had a few of his constituents stuck in the same situation as the lot of us. He admitted that the best course of action would be to find a similarly sympathetic Liberal MP to fight for it in their own caucus.
On another note, because it’s the New York primaries today, do we know which canadidates, if any, will either repeal or diminish the problems with FATCA?
Not one of the pitiful lot of US candidates have a clue about this, care one whit, or would change a thing.
@ Isabelle Brock
It’s a mystery where Donald Trump stands on FATCA/FBAR/CBT … I won’t guess but others might care to.
Hiliary Clinton is terrible on the issue … expect more of the same and even worser from her.
Bernie Sanders seems to have a fair to middlin’ grasp of the situation (now) and might have been helpful but Hiliary will super-delegate (i.e. cheat) him out of the nomination so it’s a moot point.
The best of the bunch was Rocky de la Fuente (Dem) but nobody knows about him. He said:
Oh, I forgot Ted (the Canadian) Cruz … be afraid, be very afraid.
It’s nice to see a more upbeat update today:
Cheers for Bubblebustin, LM and GwEvil and how about that Stanstead Journal? What a nice gesture to run Stephen’s ad for free. I’m sure there are many targeted individuals in that area of Canada. My spirits were suffering from some serious downers after the ETHI meeting which I felt came up short in the ethical dept. but it looks like we’re getting closer to Joseph Arvay’s witness quota so hope is still tentatively trickling along.
@EmBee
I’m not afraid of Ted Cruz. Upon his inauguration, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, the reptilian John Koskkinen, and a host of mischief makers will have their pink slips. We have much more to fear from the American left than from Ted Cruz. Exhibit A…BH Obama.
A bit off topic, but some time ago Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), told a group of expats in Paris, “you can’t vote for me but I can vote for you.” He seemed to understand FATCA’s damage to millions of people. He’s up for reelection. Maybe someone with a stronger public profile than mine could get a statement out of him.Maybe iPolitics?
My son shot the video while I posed the question during a campaign visit here in New Hampshire.
Just received this e-mail today. Response to an e-mail I sent back in October/November.
On behalf of the Honourable Jody Wilson‑Raybould, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, I acknowledge receipt of your correspondence concerning the intergovernmental agreement between Canada and the United States under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). I regret the lengthy delay in responding.
Matters related to FATCA fall within the purview of the Honourable William Francis Morneau, Minister of Finance. I have therefore taken the liberty of forwarding a copy of your correspondence to Minister Morneau for his information and consideration.
Thank you for writing.
Yours sincerely,
A/Manager
Ministerial Correspondence Unit
c.c.: The Honourable William Francis Morneau, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Finance
Marie,
I just received today the same email from the busy Mr. A/Manager.
Unlikely that Mr. Morneau is going to help us and I ask Canadians to help me find more witnesses willing to volunteer.
@Marie and @Stephen
I received the same today in snail mail response to my snail mail letter to the Justice minister.
If this brief belongs to the Minister of Finance, why was it the Minister for CRA who appeared before the House committee?
@Stephen @ Northernshrike
I’ve played this game before. I think it’s called hot potato. Some call it “The Runaround”.
Time to rename it “See You In Court”.
I realize that we have to play the game, and address them as “Honourable”, and pretend that we respect them no matter what increasingly obvious disrespect and disregard they show for us as Canadian citizens, taxpayers, voters and residents, but it is increasingly bitter to place that word anywhere in proximity to the names of Wilson‑Raybould, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, William Francis Morneau, Minister of Finance, or the Minister of Revenue Lebouthillier.
That the response from ‘A/Manager’ on behalf of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada took so long to be sent, and after long delay, was sent only as a scant form response from an anonymous ‘A/Manager’ tells us what we need to know about how they view our legitimate efforts as citizens to speak to our own government and raise serious Charter, human rights and Constitutional issues.
Would the HONOURABLE Minister respond if we held a “private fundraising reception with the Liberal justice minister … hosted at a Toronto law firm that had at least one registered lobbyist on staff …”? http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberal-party-fundraising-ethics-1.3525751
Clearly she would http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/wilson-raybould-attends-liberal-party-fundraiser-at-law-firm-1.2850648 .
And if we wanted to talk FATCA and we were Banksters or Bankster’s cousins the IIAC with our own lobbyists?
Clearly we’d have access to at least the CRA, Finance Canada, the Privacy Commissioner, etc.;
ex. https://lobbycanada.gc.ca/app/secure/ocl/lrs/do/vwRg?cno=12909®Id=850838#regStart
https://lobbycanada.gc.ca/app/secure/ocl/lrs/do/vwRg?cno=12909®Id=852685&blnk=1
And if we were talking softwood lumber instead of Canadian children’s RESPs and birthday savings from grandma?
We could get some interest from our own prime minister;
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/softwood-canada-us-trudeau-washington-visit-1.3470474
http://theargus.ca/news/2016/the-importance-of-state-dinner-for-american-canadian-relations/
And if we were a foreign government – the US?
The Canadian government would come to you
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/trudeau-in-washington/article29171736/
The game is called Pass The FATCA.
My letter today: Apr 20, 2016 Minister of Finance Departmental Corres Unit response to my correspondence of November 26, 2015, which follows my email yesterday, the same as yours. How much is someone being paid to send out such useless information?
While Bill Morneau is “It” in Pass the FATCA Game, Morneau is off in Chicago.
Morrneau tweeted this afternoon that he met with David Jacobson of BMO and other American business leaders.
Anyone else remember David Jacobson? This is the same Jacobson who insisted the USA was not after Canadian Grandmas when he was American Ambassador to Canada. (I can’t find the article from 2011. Can one of our excellent fact finders locate it?)
Jacobson is now Vice-Chair of BMO’s American operations.
https://www.bmo.com/home/about/banking/corporate-information/executive-bios/david-jacobson
How cozy for Canada’s Fiberal Finance Minister to meet with Jacobson Meanwhile Canadian Grandmas, babies and everyone in between are completely ignored by Morneau
Maybe Jacobson could be a witness in defence of Canadian Grandmas.
Argggh! Do any tweeting administrators know why I can’t get actual tweets to embed here? I copied and pasted the embed code to include media but only the text displayed.
I would like the whole tweet to display–including the photo of Jacobson and Morneau.
Sorry Lynne, I tried but it didn’t work.
Admins, you can delete the last two posts of mine above here, they’re redundant.
Wow! It has never been more obvious that this government has no intention of protecting Canadians.