Author Archives: schubert1975

If you are a Canadian citizen, you have the opportunity, and IMO the responsibility, to vote in the October 19 Canadian federal election. Certainly if you reside in Canada, and (with some restrictions I won’t go into here) even if you don’t.

This is Canadians’ opportunity to pass judgment on whether the government of Stephen Harper has stood up for Canada, for Canadian values, for Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and for Canadian citizens. And to decide whether maybe some other party should be given the chance to govern our country, for the better (we all hope).

My personal advice is to vote for anyone other than the Conservative in your riding, either the candidate most likely to defeat the Conservative candidate, or if you can’t figure out who that might be, perhaps the party leading in the national polls as of today (the Liberals) and hence with the most credible chance of getting more seats than the Conservatives and hence forming our next government. Or, if you have an incumbent MP who isn’t a Conservative and whom you respect and like, vote for that incumbent.

If you can’t bring yourself to vote for anyone other than a Conservative, but are appalled at Stephen Harper’s idea of governance of Canada, take former Progressive Conservative Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador Danny Williams’ advice, and just stay at home and don’t vote this time around. Ignore that absurd recommendation by the Globe and Mail, which said the Conservatives deserve another mandate but Harper doesn’t. In our parliamentary system you can’t make that distinction, it makes no sense. Harper is the Conservative leader, if the Conservatives really wanted to they could have deposed him but didn’t, and trying to say the Conservatives aren’t to blame for Harper’s style of governance is utterly ridiculous. They’re all joined at the hip.

But VOTE. If you’re eligible to vote in this election and don’t, IMO you’ve lost any right to complain about the outcome.

This may be of interest to Canadian citizens living outside our borders for more than five years. If you are able and willing to travel to the last riding in which you resided in Canada, with proof of your ID, your Canadian citizenship, and of your residence in that riding (an old utility bill or tax assessment from CRA might do that trick), you can in fact vote either in advance poll or on election day.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/elections-canada-expat-sault-ste-marie-vote-1.3266434

Maybe bring a printed copy of the above CBC story with you.

Your chance to help vote Harper into the oblivion he and his government so richly deserve. For more reasons than I have space to list here, but we can start with the FATCA IGA for openers.

There is an otherwise (see below) excellent article on CBC News webpage today, discussing how the Harper government seems bent on a confrontation with Canada’s legal system by deliberately bringing forward legislation that Justice lawyers advise have only even a 1% chance or slightly higher of surviving a constitutional or Charter challenge.

Harper government strategy of confrontation with courts

I am a retired federal public servant who occasionally worked with Justice lawyers on legal matters and legislation though not in the Department of Justice itself. And I am not a lawyer. But — I do know from personal experience and discussion with Justice lawyers back then, that the Harper government approach, putting forward legislation that career lawyers in Justice doubt has even a 1% chance of surviving a court challenge, is a complete reversal of the standard used by all previous federal governments under which I served, including the three Progressive Conservative governments of Clark, Mulroney and Campbell.

The article lists, near the bottom, several recent pieces of legislation likely to be challenged in court and unlikely to survive court scrutiny. Disturbingly, however, Bill C-31 Section 5 (the FATCA/IGA implementation provisions buried in the omnibus budget bill) is not included in that list.  CBC should have known to include that, given past stories and contacts we’ve had with some of their news writers.

This is an opportunity for Brockers and Sandoxers to blog a CBC story and to help raise reader awareness of the Charter and other legal issues that Harper and crowd have patently been ignoring re the IGA and FATCA. It also helps explain the careful choice of words the Finance officials were using in answering Opposition questions about Justice review of the legislation’s constitutionality under the Charter. My suspicion is that the advice that Justice gave Finance is that the probability the legislation could survive a Charter challenge was maybe more than 1% but probably not a lot more, certainly no more than perhaps 10% or so I’d guess.

This raises broader issues of Harper and crowds’ total disregard for “rule of law” in Canada and misunderstanding of the role our courts are supposed to play under our constitution, parliamentary democracy, and the Charter.

I’ve posted my own comment to the above effect in the story, still awaiting CBC moderation though. There are already hundreds of comments, most extremely critical of Harper and Justice Minister Mackay on this point, but I didn’t see any other FATCA related ones than mine, though I don’t pretend to have the time nor patience to wade through all those comments to check.

Another excellent reason to vote ABC (Anybody but the Conservative) in the next election, as well as another opportunity for Brocker and Sandbox bees to swarm and post to raise Canadians’ awareness of the issue.

As Blaze pointed out on Sandbox, and as I don’t at the moment see elsewhere here on Brock, the House of Commons Finance Committee met today from 3:30 through 5:30 today. Most of the second half of the meeting was taken up by the FATCA IGA, with questions of Finance officials (Shoom and Ernewein) mainly by the NDP, with softball lobs by Conservative members.

I’ll repeat here the comment I posted on Sandbox. I’m not going to subscribe to or respond to any replies to this; I just want to call everyone’s attention to the meeting, how to download a video clip of the entire meeting, and how important it is for Canadians affected by the IGA to watch, listen carefully, and reflect carefully.

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I am happy to call your attention to an excellent post by our friend Jim Jatras on his Repeal FATCA website. This post is aimed at Americans in the US, and I think it’s important for you to forward this link to any friends and family you might have in the US. Jim’s post is a calm rebuttal of the wild claims the Democrats are making that the Republican National Committee is committed to letting “tax cheats” off the hook, and in the vitriolic political atmosphere in the US, it’s important that calm, reasoned and moderate statements like this get some attention. He makes some very telling points about how this law got through Congress with no debate or committee study. Sounds sadly familiar in Ottawa these days, unfortunately …

The link is here
http://www.repealfatca.com/index.asp?idmenu=4&title=News&idsubmenu=146

The following information is important for several reasons. First, this correspondence was in French and is the first on FATCA that I personally have seen in that language. I think it is vital that Canadians understand the FATCA and IGA issues affect ALL Canadians no matter which of our official languages they speak (and no matter their ethnic or national origin). Second, M. Bélanger is a Liberal MP (from Ottawa-Vanier), and his response makes it clear that, even though perhaps Justin Trudeau either doesn’t understand the issues or can’t articulate them accurately and quickly on his feet, some of his caucus clearly do “get it.”

I am posting the following at the request of “Premier Juillet” and in consultation with him. I have met him in person. I am posting the original correspondence in French, followed by a translation of M. Bélanger’s letter as provided to me by “Premier Juillet.”
Premier Juillet wrote to me (Schubert): “I finally got a reply to my multiple reminders since a letter I sent in June to my Liberal deputé. I think it was worth the wait. They have done their research and I guess they had more to say because of the recent questions by Hsu/Brison. I hope they can now educate their Leader, and fast!
“Merci beaucoup Monsieur le député Belangé!
“Premier Juillet”

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Some persons born dual US-Canadian citizens at birth, particularly those born of even one Canadian parent on US soil and with no adult connections to or claims on US citizenship, may have a viable relinquishment option (as distinct from a renunciation option, open to almost everyone) for getting a Certificate of Loss of Nationality of the United States (CLN). Please see other threads of this and our partner website for a discussion of the difference between relinquishment and renunciation and why it might matter to you.

I learned yesterday by private email something I had suspected but had not been confirmed. Some duals-at-birth have, ideally after the age of 18, applied for an received a Canadian Citizenship Card from Citizenship and Immigration Canada at some point in their past. To get such a card, one has to provide evidence (in these cases) that at least one parent was a Canadian citizen at the time you were born, and you also must swear and sign an oath of allegiance to the Queen of Canada.

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As noted on other threads, on November 6 I sent an email to five Toronto Centre candidates concerning our current demonstration outside the Metro Convention Centre in Toronto. Yesterday I sent emails to the same candidates, transmitting to them the joint Brock/Sandbox letter to CBA and reminding them both about our demo and about the FATCA-centred debate being organized by Toronto Centre Debates for November 18.

I received yesterday (but only got to my email today) a reply to these emails from the Green candidate. Several days ago I got a reply from the Progressive Canadian candidate, who has been in touch with IRSCompliantForever and who I understand may attend our demonstration. At this moment, I have received no replies at all to either email from the Conservative candidate (Geoff Pollock) nor the Liberal candidate (Chrystia Freeland), and all I have from the NDP candidate (Linda McQuaig) in reply to my second email is a standard robo-reply thanking me for my email, promising it will be forwarded to an appropriate person,  and asking me for a donation. Conclude from all this as you will, Toronto Centre voters. And pass the word around.

The full text of the reply from John Deverell, the Green candidate for Toronto Centre, is as follows: Continue reading →