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(L-R) Vice-Chair CALU Roger Thorpe, Al Jones PAC, 2nd VP Simcoe-Muskoka Chapter Richard Tremblay, TFAAC Chair David Juvet, MPP Jim Wilson, Advocis Simcoe-Muskoka Chapter President Raymond Matt, MPP Vic Fedeli, Advocis member Bruce Boivin, Advocis Simcoe-Muskoka Chapter Membership Chair Jeff Schreiter pose for a picture during their visit to Queen’s Park on May 13, 2015.

It was yet another successful day for Advocis’ Simcoe-Muskoka Chapter during our visit to Ontario’s legislative assembly Queen’s Park for the 10th annual Queen’s Park Day.  More than 75 Advocis members of the nearly 110-year-old professional association were present to personally meet with over 43 MPP’s and discuss issues of importance to Canadian consumers of financial services.

Advocis believes strongly in the value of professional financial advice, along with the availability of that advice, for all Ontario consumers, regardless of their economic status; the need to raise the professional bar so Ontario consumers feel assured that the financial advice given is in their best interest, and to assure access and choice to every Ontario consumer.  We are pleased that so many of our provincial legislators were willing to take the time to meet with us and develop a broader understanding of these important issues as we work towards regulatory reform to protect Ontario consumers.

One issue being encouraged by Advocis Simcoe-Muskoka Chapter President, Raymond Matt, is the requirement for all those that hold themselves out as financial advisor be required to belong to a professional association that has a code of professional conduct.  Advocis’ code requires, among other things, that its members act with integrity, competency and diligently.  Currently in Canada, anyone, regardless of education or experience, can call themselves a financial advisor and there is no requirement to belong to a professional association.  Advocis wants to change this by raising the professional bar.

Visit Advocis website here.

The Munk Debates

In this series, Rudyard Griffiths, chair of the Munk Debates, Canada’s leading public-affairs forum, discusses issues and trends just over the horizon with renowned analysts and policy-makers.

“The debate over economic inequality has gone global since the 2011 Occupy movements. Yet, the last five years have seen little, if any, concrete action by governments on the issue. Why the disconnect?

I think one of the main reasons is that, in the years following 2008 and the global financial crisis, our collective attention was focused on survival. Would the economy recover? Could we get it to grow again? What would we do about employment? There is a political element in this as well. In the first three years of recovery in the United States, 91 per cent of all the income gains went to the upper 1 per cent. For an economy that claims to be a success, this is an outrage. Seventy per cent of Americans believe it is an outrage; they believe something should be done. And yet our fractured politics in Washington and the ideology of the right has put up road block after road block to prevent meaningful reform,” wrote Rudyard Griffiths Special to The Globe and Mail last Friday May 8, 2015.

Griffiths continued, “Where does the debate over inequality go from here?

Whenever you have the kind of economic inequality that we have in the United States and in other countries, it translates into political inequality. Some of the people at the top understandably want to keep the current system working for their benefit. So, this is not going to be an easy battle. But I think there is an increasingly large number of people who understand that things are not working and that we are not living in the land of opportunity that we thought we were. Ultimately, I am optimistic, given that the issue of economic inequality has reached the top of the public agenda. There are now grassroots movements in the context of minimum wages and, when I talk”
This interview has been edited and condensed.

Read the full article here.

Raymond Matt, CFP, CLU, TEP, CHS

“Not all labour-sponsored venture capital funds – with their high management fees and generous tax credits – end up as investment disasters.

But to become investor favourites, the VC funds – which are in the process of being wound down in most of the country – are required to transform themselves, and in one case take a path that has not been trodden before.

Consider the path taken by the Business, Engineering Science & Engineering Discoveries (BEST) Fund, which started life in the late 1990s. It is now a publicly listed limited partnership, that pays its owners $0.50 per share per year. Shareholders of the company with $38.6 million in assets received one quarter of that payment last week,” writes Barry Critchley for the Financial Post May 5, 2015.

Critchley continued, “The transformation for the BEST fund started about eight years back when the manager, who also manages other investment funds, decided that fixed-income investments made better sense than equity investments.

The solution: re-organize the BEST fund into a publicly listed LP that was similar to the private debt LPs it was already providing to friends and family and accredited investors. Those private active LPs were attractive because they generated active business income, were Canadian controlled, were tax efficient – and suited investor needs.”

Read the full article here.

Raymond Matt, CFP, CLU, TEP, CHS

“Sun Life Financial Inc.’s profits climbed slightly in the first quarter and the insurer increased its dividend for the first time since before the financial crisis.

The Toronto-based company’s profit was $441-million, or 72 cents a share, in the quarter ended March 31. That compared with $400-million, or 65 cents, in the same time in 2014.

Sun Life, which is now 150 years old, said it would boost its quarterly dividend by 6 per cent, or two cents, to 38 cents a common share. The company never trimmed its dividend during the financial turmoil and this is the first dividend increase since early 2008. The increase was based on the company’s solid profits and business momentum, Sun Life’s chief executive officer Dean Connor said in a statement,” writes Jacqueline Nelson for The Globe and Mail on Tuesday, May.5, 2015.

Nelson continued, “Sun Life calculates its performance with an “underlying” profit figure, used to show results without the impact of such items as interest rates, equity-market movements and some other considerations. On that basis, the insurer earned $516-million or 84 cents a share, compared with $440-million, or 72 cents, in the same period a year earlier. Analysts estimates were for 78 cents a share.”

Read the full article here.

Raymond Matt, CFP, CLU, TEP, CHS

“Seven decades ago, Donald Somerville’s life was spared by a twist of fate during the liberation of Holland and this week the Canadian veteran paid what will likely be his final respects to the man who took a deadly sniper’s bullet that should have killed him instead.

Mr. Martel had switched places with Mr. Somerville in an assault boat and was felled by a shot in April, 1945. He is one of about 1,350 Canadian soldiers who died in the bloody assault on German defences in Holland and Germany, and who are buried in Holten,” writes Steven Chase for The Globe and Mail on Monday of this week.

Chase continued, “This year, which marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Holland, the numbers of Canadian vets making the trip is between 115 to 130, according to Ottawa’s estimates. For many, now in their 90s, this may be their final visit. It’s a major change from the 50th anniversary in 1995 when more than 1,000 Canadian veterans marched through the streets of Apeldoorn, Netherlands.”

Read the full article here.

Raymond Matt, CFP, CLU, TEP, CHS

“The Bank of Canada’s top brass assured a parliamentary committee that Canada’s bloated housing market has not become a risky asset bubble, despite the central bank’s own calculation that house prices nationwide are roughly 20 per cent overvalued.

“We don’t believe we’re in a bubble,” Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz said in testimony Tuesday to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance. He said Canada’s long-running boom in the housing market hasn’t been underpinned by the kind of rampant speculative buying that is the hallmark of an asset bubble.”, David Parkinson writes for The Globe and Mail on Tuesday of this week.

Parkinson continued, “Mr. Poloz indicated that he believes the overvaluation is not a symptom of runaway prices and widespread investor speculation, but rather of ongoing strength in consumer demand spurred by historically low interest rates – rates that were cut by the central bank in order to keep consumer demand buoyant to support Canada’s economy during the Great Recession.”

Read the full article here.

Raymond Matt, CFP, CLU, TEP, CHS

 “The Canada Revenue Agency has issued a formal statement confirming that Canadians can immediately contribute to the new limit for tax-free savings accounts, a move that comes three days after the measure was announced in Tuesday’s budget.

The Conservative government’s 2015 budget announced that the maximum annual contribution would be increased from $5,500 to $10,000, but Canadians have been asking financial institutions and Members of Parliament to clear up when they can start making the extra contributions.

The budget was targeted to please voters just like Doug Higgins, a 73-year-old retiree who says he is not happy with the mixed messages he received this week from the government as to when he can start making extra contributions,” writes Bill Curry for The Globe and Mail Friday.

Curry continued, “The budget’s TFSA announcement has attracted the most political reaction in the House of Commons, partly because of controversial remarks made by Mr. Oliver in a budget day television interview. Mr. Oliver dismissed concerns from the Parliamentary Budget Officer and others that the measure could shrink government revenues over time.”

Read the full article here.

Raymond Matt, CFP, CLU, TEP, CHS

“The Conservative government’s long-promised return to surplus relies on a series of accounting moves that includes slashing the contingency reserve, assuming oil prices will climb and collecting billions more in Employment Insurance premiums than necessary.

While economists say it is of little significance whether federal finances are in a small deficit or small surplus, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Joe Oliver have made the return to surplus a central political pledge for the Conservatives. “A promise made, a promise kept,” Mr. Oliver said in his budget speech Tuesday. “This budget is written in black ink.”  The government’s critics called it something else: economic sleight of hand.  The 2015 budget promises to climb out of deficit and post a $1.4-billion surplus in 2015-16. That is accomplished, in part, by reducing the size of the annual contingency fund from $3-billion to just $1-billion per year over the next three years. Had Ottawa maintained the contingency fund at the levels used in budgets since 2012, the forecast would show deficits running for another two years,” writes Bill Curry for The Globe and Mail this Tuesday.

Curry continues, “The government is also keeping Employment Insurance premiums at higher rates than necessary to cover the costs of annual EI benefits. The budget shows the EI account will be in surplus in 2015-16 and that surplus will grow to $5.5-billion the following year. The government says it will balance the account over time by dramatically reducing EI premiums from $1.88 per $100 of insurable earnings to $1.49 in 2017-18.”

Read the full article here.

Raymond Matt, CFP, CLU, TEP, CHS

 “The impact of the oil-price collapse is hitting home in Canada’s oil patch and beyond as companies rethink plans to hire and invest.  Businesses are gloomier about adding workers than they’ve been since early 2009, when the country was still reeling from the recession, according to the Bank of Canada’s quarterly business outlook survey, released Monday.  “Lower oil prices continue to dampen overall sale outlook of firms, weighing on investment and hiring intentions,” the central bank said.  Business conditions are worst in the energy sector, but the survey found evidence that companies further down the supply chain and in other industries are also feeling the pain,” wrote Barrie McKenna for the Globe and Mail on Monday.

McKenna continued, “The number of contracts up for grabs in Alberta “has started to slow down,” acknowledged Dennis Dussin, president of Alps Welding Ltd. of Woodbridge, Ont., a custom metal fabricator that does roughly half its work for the oil-and-gas industry.  “But that’s only part of our business, so it hasn’t affected us that much,” he said.  The company, which employs 75 people, does work from the exploration stage to refining, and the downstream end of the business is continuing to generate work.”

Read the full article here.

Raymond Matt, CFP, CLU, TEP, CHS

“Feminism has gotten a bad rap lately.

While most women and men say they believe in equality between the sexes, a significant proportion of those polled in recent years say they don’t identify themselves as feminists, considering the term dated and freighted with negative connotations.

A perfect example of such thinking surfaced late last year when Time Magazine included the word “feminist” in a list of terms that should be banished in 2015, in what I can only hope was an item written by a misguided intern who was promptly dismissed. The magazine later apologized,” writes Leah Eichler for the Globe and Mail on March 6, 2015.  

Eichler continued, “My own brand of feminism often centres on giving women equal opportunities in business and access to capital. I’ve often called this business feminism, but others have called it executive feminism orfinancial feminism. In other words, we’re talking about women and money.

You might not realize it, but women and money are a hot topic. At last month’s Oscar ceremonies, Patricia Arquette took the opportunity during her acceptance speech for best supporting actress to demand equal pay for women. Compare that with Amy Pascal, the former co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, who admitted in an interview with Tina Brown in February that she paid women less because they settled for less and she was running a business.”

Read the full article here.

Raymond Matt, CFP, CLU, TEP, CHS