Chicago residents Marvin and Elaine Gottlieb are taking on Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and the Canadian government for the Halloween 2006 broken promise on the elimination of income trusts.

The Chicago couple are the first Americans to file a Notice of Intent to Submit a Claim to Arbitration under the North American Free Trade Agreement. The couple are among the thousands of U.S. investors who lost a total of $5 billion dollars in the fallout from the Conservative government’s decision last year to effectively tax income trusts in the energy sector out of existence.

“The Halloween 2006 income trust decision by the Government of Canada has had a massive financial impact on thousands of investors in Canada and the U.S. and we believe that it breached Canada’s NAFTA obligations”, said Marvin Gottlieb. “Because of this decision, more than $30 billion has been lost by individual investors in Canada and more than $5 billion has been lost by energy trust investors, including Elaine and me, in the U.S.

“Based on Stephen Harper’s very public promise, thousands of individuals and grandparents like us invested our hard earned money in income trusts and energy trusts. This is not just a nightmare on Bay Street. It’s a nightmare on Wall Street.”