Statistics Canada is asking banks across the country for financial transaction data and personal information of 500,000 Canadians without their knowledge, Global News has learned.
Documents obtained by Global News show the national statistical agency plans to collect “individual-level financial transactions data” and sensitive information, like social insurance numbers (SIN), from Canadian financial institutions to develop a “new institutional personal information bank.”
StatsCan has become one creepy government department.
““Under no circumstances will the personal information obtained from financial institutions be used to perform credit, expenditure or income check on individual Canadians,” the agency said.”
So, you promising that CRA won’t be getting the info? Yeah…..right.
And if the banks don’t fight this tooth and nail, they don’t deserve to have our money.
CRA can already get the information by asking.
The difference is Stats Canada can and will make this available for CRA fishing expeditions.
Oh and Stats Canada can purchase info from internet service providers, phone companies, etc. Although the names are redacted, by using the postal code, census data and a host of big data techniques, they can identify individuals. CRA can thus identify people who are living “above their means”
I would expect nothing less than for a hostile, leftist, government to WEAPONIZE such information against citizens whose opinions they don’t like. Case in point: The Obama Admin.
It does seem that we are headed that way.
“The personal banking and financial transactions being requested include bill payments, cash withdrawals from ATMs, credit card payments, electronic money transfers and even account balances of Canadians across the country.”
This is a massive invasion of privacy and should be illegal. Beyond that, it’s a hackers dream and government is notoriously bad at security. In it’s ugliest form, what will stop this info from being used maliciously such as leaking financial records of political opponents to the media, using it as a backdoor for law enforcement “tips”, personal vendettas and blackmail? Personal assurances from politicians and bureacrats? The big government loving media will support it because the Liberals are proposing it but I wonder if they’d want a CPC government having access to this type of information.
I would concur. In which future millennia should any citizen trust the state with this level of outright chicanery?
Only the severely stupid and naive would believe any of this tripe.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group ‘True North’
As our bankrupt welfare states continue to kick the can down the road, the fiscal reckoning will become more desperate. As boomers incomes decrease with retirement while politicians desperate to be re-elected refrain from clobbering their successors with significantly increased income tax, the state, including all levels of government will seriously look at more health care rationing (killing off boomers becoming “too” burdensome) and wealth taxes on anyone who responsibly saved for their retirement. Wealth taxes have already slithered into dystopian welfare states like BC under the progressive-speak “foreign buyers” tax and increased real estate transfer taxes for higher valued homes. It will eventually become something like an annual 2-3% of net worth of anyone with assets over say 100K. Greece showed our hysteria-pimping political class the way when they seized significant portions of everyone’s bank accounts. The data collection is the first step. I can see reverse mortgages being taken out to pay wealth taxes. In the end there will be few makers, just takers and the round trip to serfdom, complete.
I am old enough to remember when they were having their long form census privileges taken away.
This is why we need to get serious about cryptocurrency.
“…serious about cryptocurrency.”
And oxymoron with an emphasis on moron spoken by a moron.
Well Onion does have a point, but only a fragile one. Is any computer network safe from government agencies? Cash is King here, which is why governments would love to get rid of it.
BTW This is appalling news. Andy 2% should make such a stink that it would smell like rotten milk. Even the G & M must be horrified by this.
Yep, people who object to this big brother type move will either go low tech (cash/barter) or high tech (crypto). Probably both.
Your LPC government and their media mouthpieces hate you. Don’t ever forget that.
But the LPC loves your money. In fact they need more of it so Justin can travel more and buy more costumes.
Oh and he has to pay for a $100 million fix up to 24 Sussex Drive, so he can live in style. The fix up will reduce his CO2 emissions, cause he can walk to his private swimming pool instead of taking a drive from Rideau Cottage like he and his kids do now.
I sent CRA a large sum of money to cover my annual HST payment. They held onto it for 2 months. My accountant managed to save me some taxes by shifting revenue to a related company that had losses in previous years. The HST payments went with the revenues. Instead of switching my HST payment to the related company CRA returned my original payment and issued me a new invoice to the related company, charging me 2 months interest while paying me no interest while they held my money. What a bunk of dicks. Has CRA ever phoned you to see how your business is doing? No, this is why people are moving their companies off-shore.
Tell me about it. When I filed the last income tax return for my late father, I ended up losing about 10% of my inheritance just like that.
The government certainly loves it when people die…..
Yes, the government is infested with people who think everything belongs to them, that they know what is good for everyone, and Toronto will never stop voting for that.
Exactly. And some day they will take a page out of their Bolshevik forebears and just outright confiscate what they want.
It’s already started, by taxing the air you breath, taxing your food, essentially taxing day to day living with Green Taxes starting Jan 1st, 2019. As if we owed them something for being born & living in this country. They are confiscating your life & lively hood, bit by bit, smug in their self righteousness in doing so.
Oh the times are getting creepier by the day. I wonder if Scheer would do anything differently, or even try to rein in these power mad bureaucrats? (Rhetorical)
They want it all.
They will take it.
This is slow death…
From the most “transparent” government in the country’s history …
Which is also “better” than the previous Conservative government…. believe that and you’ll be seeing airborne swine pretty soon.
… to the most transparent population.
The cashless society will seal the fate of free society and deliver us into serfdom once and for all as the state controls our capital, thus factors of production, thus …. well you know the rest – mental institutions, gulags and firing squads for the dissidents.
They can’t be civil with people who want to destroy everything they stand for – control of your money, life and freedom.
Is automaton slavery for atomized state serfs too great a price to pay?
Hillary and Justin say no and only people appealing to their worst instincts would object to their hegemony and control over our lives and thoughts.
…..BIG BROTHER watches over you!