Allison Christians has information on her blog about numerous questions Liberal Ted Hsu asked in an Order Paper (scroll down to Q816 Nov 24, 2014).
I do not pretend to understand the myriad of complexities on this. Heck,even Allison can’t figure it out and she’s a law professor! Allison says:
In fact, Allison says:
Some of the questions clearly illustrate that treaty-making in Canada is really quite a mysterious process
Allison calls it:
It is a maddeningly opaque regime.
That pretty well sums up this whole experience with the Canadian government. I’m glad Mr. Hsu continues to ask questions. But, I fully expect the answers to Mr. Hsu will be non-answers–exactly like the non-answers he got to his questions last year.
I remember that at some point, someone mentioned contacts with the political parties opposing FATCA to see if there was something that can be done with them. Has this avenue been pursued? Could they also sue over the constitutionality of the law, like the Republican Overseas is planning to do in the US? Or do they let grass root movement like ADCS do the job and not be involved? That would be a shame.
Additionally, can the opposition parties contribute funds to the ADCS in support of the Charter challenge?
Here are the nonsense empty ‘answers’ the Harper government issued to MP Hsu’s questions of Nov. 2014:
As posted on Allison Christians’ blog;
Thursday, January 29, 2015
‘Responses to Questions on Canada’s Adoption of FATCA IGA ‘
“Back in November I noted that MP Ted Hsu presented an order paper question (OPQ 816) on the topic of the unusual process surrounding Canada’s adoption of an intergovernmental agreement on FATCA. He asked a series of detailed questions about the treaty tabling and ratification process, and today he got his answers, the substance of which I have reproduced below; you can find the full document here.
I note that there is a common answer to many of the questions: “Information pertaining to Memorandums to Cabinet which are less than 20 years old is considered a cabinet confidence and details of these are excluded from disclosure under the principles of the Access to Information Act.” Therefore, most of the answers are: you will find out in 20 years.”…….
http://taxpol.blogspot.ca/2015/01/responses-to-questions-on-canadas.html
Read the whole thing to see how much of a sham the so-called ‘answers’ are.