I come before you as the voice of one million Canadians. We are Canadians. Many have been Canadian citizens for life or for decades. We chose Canada. We expect Canada to now choose us and our rights over foreign bully demands.
Why do our most heinous criminals have more charter rights than I do, asked a Nova Scotia police officer of 33 years. He was born in Maine almost six decades ago when his New Brunswick mother was sent there to give birth. A Quebec woman who has been a Canadian citizen since birth says her ancestor who came to Canada in 1682 must be turning over in his grave at FATCA.
A widowed grandma in Vancouver was told by a U.S. consulate when she became a Canadian citizen in 1972 she was permanently and irrevocably relinquishing American citizenship. She insists, “my financial records are definitely none of the business of the IRS”. An Ontario first nations husband and father is horrified his Canadian government will help the United States seize his family's private financial records because his wife was born there.
An Alberta woman reports her mother, who upheld Canadian laws for many years as a justice of the peace, is now medically and physically too frail to deal with FATCA stresses. They and one million other Canadians were betrayed by the FATCA intergovernmental agreement.
We were offended and insulted to hear the Minister of State for Finance call us American citizens abiding in Canada in the House of Commons. If Canada mandated financial institutions to seek Canadians born in China, India, Iran or Eritrea, the CRA to transmit private financial information to those nations, there would be outrage. Canadians born in the United States should have the same rights as all other Canadians. Canada should strongly defend those rights and not sacrifice them to a foreign country.
Two prominent Canadians described FATCA well. In 2011 and many times after that, the Finance Minister, the late Jim Flaherty, said:
But FATCA has far-reaching extraterritorial implications. It would turn Canadian banks into extensions of the IRS and would raise significant privacy concerns for Canadians.
Terry Campbell, president of the Canadian Bankers Association, in 2012 said: FATCA is the poster child for the problem of extra-territoriality.... It threatens to erode Canadian sovereignty.
Those statements hold true now. Under threat of economic sanctions and penalties, Canada surrendered its sovereignty to a foreign power with the IGA. Canadians affected by FATCA were stunned last week when a member of this committee said “Congress has spoken”. Canadians expect Parliament to speak for Canada. Canadians expect Parliament to uphold Canada's laws, rights, and Constitution. Anything less is an affront and betrayal to Canada and to Canadians.
FATCA is complex. I give you a simple solution. I urge you to adopt an amendment to the implementation act. Notwithstanding any other provision of this act or the agreement for all purposes related to the implementation of this act and the agreement, U.S. person and specified U.S. person shall not include any person who is a Canadian citizen or a legal permanent resident who is ordinarily resident in Canada.
I implore you, do the right thing. Stand up for Canada and for all Canadians.