I sent an e-mail to Maura Drew-Lytle and Terry Campbell last evening suggesting we have a Canadian Hat Trick with three opposition parties resisting FATCA.
Here is what I said:
Some might call it a FATCA hat trick. Three opposition parties standing up for Canadians on FATCA.
First, it was Elizabeth May and the Green party.Green Party statement: http://www.greenparty.ca/backgrounder/2013-01-28/backgrounder-canada-and-fatcaA few weeks ago, NDP Revenue Critic Murray Rankin joined the resistance:Shortly after, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair sent e–mails to Canadians. Next was NDP Finance Critic Peggy Nash.Now, two Liberal MPs, Dr. Ted Hsu (supported by former justice Minister, former law professor and international law and human rights expert MP Irwin Cotler) and Finance and Revenue critic Scott Brison have asked several direct questions on FATCA in an order paper.Here are the questions in a more readable format than in the Order Paper.Canadians will not allow their banks and other financial institutions to violate their fundamental rights. We now have the clear support of three parties in our fight. We are also in ongoing contact with a prominent constitutional lawyer and Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA).
What will CBA do? Will you stand up for Canadians or will you capitulate to a foreign government?
“You have a choice, Sirs. You could do better.”
Maura Drew-Lytle responded this morning:
Thank you for the information.
Thanks, Blaze.
I’ve just sent your brilliant message on to Finance Minister Flaherty, Prime Minister Harper, MP Michelle Rempel and Kevin Schoom:
My Canadian government representatives,
Here are relevant links in one package in preparation for your answering Canadian Parliament Question 121 and now Question 127 regarding FATCA, as sent to the Canadian Bankers Association by Lynne Swanson, fellow Canadian.
…
ending with,
And, yes dear Conservative government representatives, you can do better – You have the same choice.
Regards,
calgary411
Calgary, AB
Thank you Blaze and Calgary411.
The CBA and friends are a bunch of exploitive, skulking backroom lobbyists and FATCAllaborators – with no ethics.
They’d rather change the Charter and Constitution to implement a FATCA IGA rather than inform and support their fellow Canadians. They’d rather do business as usual – no matter what that means for the lives and assets over 1 million Canadian families.
I hope that they lose droves of account holders to credit unions.
I’ll be telling my fellow citizens, voters, and accountholders about the choices the Banksters have made, for years to come.
@Badger, you are so right. I actually had a bit of an argument with my husband last night. He thinks that FATCA will never go through, and if it does that the banks will refuse to comply. HI don’t think he believed me when I said that the banks are ALREADY starting to bow down before the US, and have been either complying, or readying themselves to comply for a very long time now.
@ Outraged Canadian
From what I can see, banks at the local level are getting ready to comply, but have not yet complied. My bank manager knows that I was born in the US, and also knows that I have renounced. After I renounced, I changed my bank account number. What I reported earlier on the FBAR no longer exists, and he has assured me that now that I have renounced, they will report nothing about me.
I am of the opinion that the Government is stalling because they know damn well that a constitutional challenge would be forthcoming in the event of an IGA, and that furthermore, an IGA would not withstand a constitutional challenge.
Deep down, I think both Harper and Flaherty hate Obama’s guts. Just as I was, I think they were both smiling when Putin and the Chinese Government bitch slapped him on the international stage. Both those countries are net creditor nations. If Kenyan Muslim warlord Obama wanted to make war, he would first have to get financing from the people who stood in his way on Syria. Amusing.
How many countries have caved in on FATCA. Not nearly as many as warlord Obama expected. Those who have not signed should, as a group, demand full reciprocity for all their nationals living in the States. Those who have signed should renege and demand the same thing.
I think FATCA will die. It will be a painful death, but die it will nevertheless. The trigger point will be when the world comes to their senses and stops using the US dollar as the reserve currency. This is already starting to happen. Once the US dollar loses that status, there will be no real reason for foreign governments and banks to follow FATCA.
For all the trouble that scumbag’s law has put me to, I think would sooner take up arms against the United States than take their citizenship back. I hate him. I will never forgive him or his government for putting me to so much trouble.
NEVER.
I feel you ArticGreyling! Would you consider putting some of that pent up anger to good use, and joining us at the upcoming Toronto protest outside the “Canadian Institute’s 19th Annual REGULATORY COMPLIANCE for Financial Institutions” ?? FATCA is on their agenda.
I would, except that I am a snow bird in Colombia. I spend half the year here.
Too far and too costly for me to travel there, and I have already spent too much anyway. I have already spent about $10K (legal fees and travel) to get that third world ghetto garbage president out of my life.
I wish upon him an AIDS infection from his Chicago Bathhouse. Or I hope he gets lung cancer from smoking.
I am more focused on a Bridge Tournament put on by the National Federation for Bridge in Colombia that starts here in Pereira later today.
I had an interesting weekend in Pereira Colombia where I attended a bridge tournament. The majority of the players either speak English fluently or at least have some knowledge of it. It was a very cosmopolitan crowd, and many have interesting life stories.
One fellow who stayed in the same B&B as I did was born in Colombia in 1938 to a Canadian father who was working here for the Royal Bank at that time. He has never lived in Canada (has lived in Colombia all his life), but does speak perfect English and does, until this day, travel abroad using his Canadian passport. By some means or other, his Canadian citizenship has reached down as far as his grand children. I told him about my connection to the States, but that a US passport posed problems for me that a Canadian passport does not pose for him. He was only vaguely aware of the difficulties.
Doesn’t his story alone prove that Canada is a better country?
Another fellow was a retired Belgian banker who worked for Credit Lyonnais. He teaches at a University in Bogota, has some knowledge of FATCA, and agrees with us in here that the American policy makers have their heads buried up their posteriors. He seems to think that Colombia has signed FATCA, but I have seen nothing official on it.
In any case, there were a number of ex-pat Americans also at the tournament, and are really choked at the idea of what burdens FATCA is imposing upon them. One was a lady who is the administrator of a private school, and consequently has signing authority. She told me she has not reported those accounts on her FBAR, and indignantly refuses to do so. If she did, she said she would be out of a job in any case. The school would fire her (and rightly so).
What a world we live in. Those ignoramuses in Washington are paranoid.