Financial Institution

: Recovering my composure, I asked to speak with a supervisor, who informed me that "like any financial institution in Canada we are required by law to collect this information," and that the answers would have no effect on my credit rating, according to Rabble. If that were the case, I pressed, why were they asking these personal questions, and with whom were they sharing the answers Interrogation by proxy The answer was eerie: the company needed to determine, on behalf of the federal government, whether I or any family member would be what known as a "politically exposed foreign person." But how did they determine who of their 1.5 million cardholders to call The Canadian government, the supervisor explained , provides the company a list of cardholders to question. "They tell us, 'We need you people to read these cardholders this legal disclosure, get a clear yes or no at the end of it, and tell us once you've had it updated.' We make a note on the account that it has been done. Who knew that owning a credit card whose purchases produced redeemable points for free groceries also entailed an insidious trade-off that invaded our privacy and left a chilling aftertaste Informed that failure to answer certain questions would result in forfeiture of the card, I resigned myself to 10 minutes of wasted time and, following the usual gobbledygook about disclosure, was asked if anyone in my immediate and extended family had ever "held one of the following offices or positions in or on behalf of a foreign country: a head of state or government; a member of the executive council of government or member of a legislature; a deputy minister ; an ambassador or an ambassador attaché or counsellor; a military general ; a president of a state-owned company or bank; a head of a government agency; a judge; or a leader or president of a political party in a legislature." The question was chilling, for though I could honestly answer no, whose business was it to ask It concerned me that immigrants might be flagged if they answered affirmatively, and perhaps asked further questions about their relationship to, for example, overseas political parties that the Canadian government deemed unsavoury. We pull the information and send it to the government." When I asked to see the company policy with respect to any mandate to undertake investigative work on behalf of the government, I was told, "Anything about our internal policy for generating accounts that we will ask questions along those lines is internal policy and unfortunately nobody going to be able to disclose that information to you." The supervisor asked if there was "anything else we can do for you today," but I hung up the phone. Since FINTRAC mission is "detection and deterrence of money laundering and terrorist financing," it appeared that the calls my credit card company was making played into the tiresome trope that terrorism is imported with immigrants to Canada. An Internet search employing language from my questioning led me to the source of this disturbing call: the Proceeds of Crime and Terrorist Financing Act , a measure passed in 2000 by the Chretien Liberals that created the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre , a "financial intelligence" unit that sounded about as threatening as an actuarial table. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.