Breaking News: Jim Flaherty is Dead.
Retweeted by AtticusinCanada
The Montreal Gazette ?BREAKING: Former finance minister Jim Flaherty has passed away. More to come.
Breaking News: Jim Flaherty is Dead.
BREAKING: Former finance minister Jim Flaherty has passed away. More to come.
I’m sorry to hear that.
@Recalcitrant: Me too. I think Flaherty did his best for us to try to stop FATCA. I think he was disappointed in himself and in his government that they weren’t able to protect us or to protect Canada.
I also am sad. In fact, I’m quite stunned at the grief I am feeling. I feel as if I’ve lost a friend that I had a falling out with.
Please don’t anyone tell me I’m a fool for feeling like that.
Condolences to Flaherty’s wife Christine Elliott (who is deputy leader of the PC Party in the Ontario legislature) and their three sons.
@Blaze, while I don’t feel quite the same way you do, I absolutely respect your right to feel that way, and would never, ever call you a fool.
I agree that he tried – he certainly came out strongly against it in the beginning, and I think that in the end he was hobbled by his own govt.
I also extend my condolences to his wife and family.
I am sorry to see that he is gone.
I will always remember him as the first guy to speak up against American bullying in 2011 when the OVDI was in the news. It reassured a lot of people (including me) in this country that there was somebody in our government willing to go to bat for us. At that time, the silence from virtually all other political corners was deafening.
For me, knowing that our courts would not cooperate with Obama’s goons made the decision to renounce easier. Having shed that toxic citizenship is a huge relief. The Americans would not be able to print enough money, or borrow enough from their Chinese bankers in any attempt to bribe me to take their citizenship back.
I will never forgive them for the angst they put me and many others through on the OVDI issue in 2011. I will never forgive them for the time and expense they put me through to be free from them.
Damn the American government to hell!!
And my condolences to Flaherty’s family.
@ArcticGreyling: When Flaherty stated clearly and firmly in August 2011 that Canada does not and will not collect for IRS and when he wrote his strong letter a month later, I began to sleep again for the first time in weeks.
Here is an article from a former London Ontario MP who is very involved in the community: Jim Flaherty Was A Man Whose Humanity Trumped His Politics.
RIP Jim Flaherty. He was a good guy. I’m familiar with his career going back about 25 years and supported him for leadership of the provincial party. I remember in the dark dark days following my OMG moment, his anti-FATCA letter to the US newspapers was like a ray of light.
I echo all the condolences for Flaherty’s family and friends. I didn’t agree much with his policies or his politics, but I believe that he was a gentleman without a nasty bone in his body (can’t say that about many others in that front bench) and that he meant the best for Canada and Canadians, as he saw “the best.” I also think it was obvious he wasn’t at all happy with FATCA and did what he could to try to fight it or water it down as much as possible. I think having the IGA specifically locked into the tax treaty was his doing; there is wording limiting the IGA to the terms of treaty, and I think that provides ample room for various legal challenges under that treaty. And it was no accident that Flaherty and his officials in the standard attachment to his emails on the subject of FATCA, repeatedly assured Canadian citizens (no matter what other citizenship they might have) that the treaty terms exempting Canadian resident Canadian citizens from collection by CRA of any US tax liability or penalty claims against them, were still there and will be respected. Let’s hope Joe Oliver and Harper remember that and abide by it. Flaherty was telling everyone something by doing that.
And it was Flaherty who signed the 2007 treaty amendment that “grandfathered” (excuse the gender specificity) from ANY collection for ANY time period for anyone who is and was a Canadian citizen before November 1995.
Those are things I will remember about him. I am sad he’s gone, and for as long as we’re saddled with Harper and his crowd, I’ll be sad it isn’t him in the Finance Minister’s chair. I’d rather have Nathan Cullen or Scott Brison in that job, but if it has to be a Tory, I’d have rather seen Flaherty continue than have Oliver or anyone else in the Tory caucus, none others of whom I’d trust further than I can spit.
@ schubert….
Where were Brison and and Cullen when OVDI was in the news 3 years ago? Flaherty was the only one I can remember who spoke up. Why did it take others in positions of influence so long to speak up?
When has Justin Trudeau answered any queries about FATCA? Justin Trudeau as PM? Oh my god!! Paris Hilton in drag, and with about the same amount of intellectual substance!!