CSI Blog & Newsroom

“Prime Minister Stephen Harper and close to 20 other world leaders converged on the beaches of Normandy, France Friday to celebrate the 70th anniversary of a pivotal invasion that marked a turning point in the Second World War,” Steven Chase wrote for The Globe and Mail today. Chase continued, “About 14,000 Canadian troops came ashore at Juno Beach on this day in 1944 – part of large force of 156,000 Allied troops that landed on an 80-km stretch of France’s northern coast. Three hundred and forty Canadians died on that June 6 and more than 5,000 were killed during the entire Battle of Normandy, which saw Allied forces establish a much-needed foothold in Western Europe. On a sunny Friday morning under clear skies, Mr. Harper led a wreath-laying at Beny-sur-Mer war cemetery, the resting place of more than 2,000 Canadian soldiers killed during the early stages of the Norman invasion. The site is ringed by pines, maple tree and hedges and those buried here include nine pairs of brothers – the most of any Second World War cemetery.” Read the full article here.

“The Bank of Canada helped send the Canadian dollar lower again today as it highlighted the benefit of a weaker currency and cited the potential risks ahead,” Michael Babad wrote for The Globe and Mail today. Babad continued, “As The Globe and Mail’s Barrie McKenna reports, the central bank under Governor Stephen Poloz held its neutral stance, giving no signal as to where its benchmark interest rate could be headed, or when. As expected, it held the key overnight rate at just 1 per cent. ‘Global economic growth in the first quarter of 2014 was weaker than anticipated in the [monetary policy report] and recent developments give slightly greater weight to downside risks,’ the Bank of Canada said. So called-core inflation, which strips out volatile items, is still ‘significantly below’ its target. The central bank noted that the economy expanded at a modest pace in the first quarter of the year – by just 1.2 per cent at a annual rate – notably because of the weather.” Read the full article here.

 “It may seem like unsurprising advice, but it’s causing waves in the world of corporate banking,” Janet McFarland wrote for a The Globe and Mail article late last week. McFarland continued, “Deutsche Bank senior executive Colin Fan, a Canadian based in London, has become an Internet sensation with a blunt internal staff video telling his traders and investment bankers not to be ‘boastful, indiscreet and vulgar’ and warning that he has ‘lost patience’ with their communications style.” You can view the viral video above. It reminds us at CSI of another Canadian with a strong moral compass.  Markham, Ontario resident Brad Katsuyama made a discovery while working in RBC’s Manhattan offices in 2007.  He noticed, “how some high-frequency trading firms game the stock-market system to skim profits in a fraction of the time it would take to blink an eye, and how his software could get around this,” Armina Ligaya wrote in a March Financial Post article.

“Bank of England governor Mark Carney says the British economy has begun heading back to normal but interest rates may remain low ‘for some time,'” a CBC news article wrote earlier in the week. The article continued, “The U.K. central bank released a report on the economy that shows an improved outlook for unemployment and inflation and remaining optimism on GDP growth, compared to earlier this year. The bank believes the British economy will grow 3.4 per cent this year and has upgraded its forecast for next year to 2.9 per cent. The unemployment rate is at its lowest level in five years – 6.8 per cent – but Carney, a former governor of the Bank of Canada, noted there is still ‘slack’ in the labour market, including 1.4 million people working part-time.” Read the full article here.

“A wave of Canadian filmmakers — both established and emerging — descend on the Cannes Film Festival today as the annual cinematic celebration on the French Riviera gets underway for 2014,” a CBC news article wrote yesterday. The article continued, “A record three Canadians — stalwarts David Cronenberg and Atom Egoyan as well as recent favourite Xavier Dolan — are unveiling their latest in official competition. Among the 18 films vying for the festival’s coveted Palme d’Or are Cronenberg’s Hollywood tale Maps to the Stars, Egoyan’s kidnap drama The Captive and Dolan’s mother-son story Mommy.”

Read the full CBC article here.

The new book The Confidence Code co-authored by English journalist Katty Kay and American television journalist and Good Morning America correspondence Claire Shipman, explores the nature of confidence, specifically in women. Kay and Shipman sat down with fellow journalist Charlie Rose on his PBS talk show to discuss their findings and talk about their personal experience with confidence. You can watch the interview here.

As the CSI blog reported last week over 100 Advocis members from across the province met with a record 60 MPPs to garner support for Ontario Private Members Bill 157, Financial Advisors Act, 2014. We are proud to post an artilcle from the Advocis website that highligted the event. The article reads in part, “The most important result of the day was that all MPPs continue to support the direction of Bill 157. Despite there being a spring election, MPPs encouraged Advocis to bring the bill back as they believe it is an important step towards establishing higher standards for financial advisors and appropriately protecting consumers.” View the full article here.  

(L-R) Al Jones PAC, Richard Borland, MPP Jim Wilson, Advocis Simcoe-Muskoka Chapter President Raymond Matt, Gary Laakso and Advocacy Chair Erika Conyette pose for a picture during their visit to Queen’s Park on April 29, 2014.

It was a successful day for Advocis’ Simcoe-Muskoka Chapter during their visit to Ontario’s legislative assembly Queen’s Park for the 9th annual Queen’s Park Day.  More than 100 members of the nearly 100-year-old professional association were present to meet with MPP’s to discuss issues of importance to Canadian consumers of financial services. One such issue being encouraged by Advocis Simcoe-Muskoka Chapter President Raymond Matt is Bill 157, an Act to regulate financial advisors.  Currently in Canada anyone, regardless of education or experience, can call themselves a financial advisor.  Advocis wants to change this by raising the professional bar. This would mean all individuals that call themselves financial advisors must be registered as such, bound by a code of professional conduct, carry adequate errors and omissions insurance, be a member of a professional association and complete minimum continued education requirements. Advocis is pleased to say they have strong support for Bill 157, it has passed second reading and is now in committee. Information on Bill 157 is available at the Legislative Assembly of Ontario’s website here.

“Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz says he has not ruled out a future cut to interest rates despite his belief that the global and Canadian recoveries are picking up steam and that disinflationary pressures appear to be waning. The head of Canada’s central bank made the comment after it decided to keep the trendsetting overnight rate at 1% for the 29th time in a row since September 2010. The bank also pared back its estimate for first-quarter economic growth by a full point to 1.5% — mostly because of the severe winter weather that began in December — and 2014 growth to 2.3% from 2.5. But in its overall assessment, the Bank of Canada’s new monetary policy report appeared to reflect a growing confidence in the global economic recovery and less concern about persistent low inflation and an overly hot housing sector.” Julian Beltrame of the Canadian Press wrote for the Financial Post. Beltrame continued, “still, Poloz said in a teleconference from Toronto — where he was to attend former finance minister Jim Flaherty’s funeral in the afternoon — that considerable risks remain, including the possibility that Canadian exports won’t recover fully and the potential for a political shock from Ukraine’s difficulties with Russia. ‘We are neutral, that means a rate cut cannot be taken off the table at this stage,’ Poloz said. ‘It will depend on the data.’ The central bank has set an ideal target of annual inflation at 2.0% but considers it acceptable within a range of between 1.0% and 3.0%.” Read the full article here. | Raymond Matt, CFP, CLU, TEP, CHS  

“The outpouring of grief among MPs these past days, as Parliament Hill comes to grips with the death of one of its finest, Jim Flaherty, has been extraordinary – a moment that has brought them together in shared loss, as sometimes happens with families. For now, more unites them than separates them. For a little while the veil of partisanship and manufactured outrage falls; they are just people, who’ve lost a friend. But as the country prepares for the former finance minister’s state funeral Wednesday, it’s worth asking whether there’s more to the sense of collective mourning, particularly among Conservatives, than the purely personal.” Michael Den Tandt wrote in an article for the Ottawa Citizen. Den Tandt continued, “Flaherty was, as all the eulogies last week made so clear, a human being, who never allowed his humanity to be eclipsed by the importance of his station. He loved a beer, loved a joke, was kind to colleagues, was warm, and decent. Though he operated on a different plane of influence from most other MPs in the Commons, Flaherty put on no airs. ‘If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with kings, nor lose the common touch,’ reads the line from Kipling. Flaherty was also a man of deep compassion, evidenced by his long championing of the disabled, informed by his own experience of raising a son with a developmental disability. He believed it was his mission as finance minister to help ordinary working Canadians who were struggling to make ends meet. He was the antithesis of the pin-striped, aloof Bay Street banker. If one looks back to the Conservatives’ early success, in the Christmas campaign of 2005, it stemmed from an intuitive sympathy for working families, and an ability to express this in policy. The child fitness tax credit, derided as a geegaw by economic purists but appreciated by millions of parents, was the quintessential example.” Read the full article here. | Raymond Matt, CFP, CLU, TEP, CHS