(April 20, 2005) Tax reform is a sleeper issue — the United States will be looking closely at overhauling its system next year and Canada should follow suit, says Jack Mintz, president and CEO of the C.D. Howe Institute. On a list of 20 different countries examined by the institute, Canadian businesses pay the third […]
(April 8, 2005) Clients don’t know much about it and most don’t qualify, but insurance companies say the market for critical illness (CI) insurance in Canada is huge and untapped. The market is relatively young here. CI is not fully understood by many who might sell it and the product in general is barely known […]
(April 6, 2005) U.S. taxpayers who own an RRSP or an RRIF are getting a little bit of help with their tax filing requirements this year. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released a new tax form for reporting Canadian registered retirement accounts to replace older onerous reporting requirements. The catch is filling out the […]
(April 5, 2005) Keep an eye on the pension universe in the next couple of years. Changes to the way companies administer their pension plans mean clients will probably be making more investment decisions related to those plans and funding formula changes are probably going to affect what they get at the end of the […]
(March 31, 2005) The big banks want an even larger chunk of client assets. And they’re looking at products like insurance and mutual funds to drive future growth. At a meeting on Wednesday in Montreal, banking executives spent the day talking up performance and explaining how they plan to capture more customer wallet share. Insurance […]
(March 31, 2005) The TSX plans to get back into derivatives, chief executive Richard Nesbitt announced in a speech on Thursday. The exchange can’t get into the business until 2009 when its non-compete agreement runs out. The deal was signed in 1999 when the Montreal Exchange (ME) took over the derivatives trading business and transferred […]
(March 29, 2005) Scam artistry attracts some of the best and brightest talent. Frauds are becoming more sophisticated, and the largest growing group of people falling for those crimes are seniors, says CARP. Fraud hurts victims regardless of their age, but seniors are particularly vulnerable and the consequences are especially dire since they have very […]
(March 28, 2005) There’s been a flurry of appointment notices in the Canadian regulatory arena lately, and across the board talk is becoming increasingly more cooperative and sympathetic towards ideas like a national regulator. Among the handful of appointments to board positions at the Canadian Securities Administrators and new commissioner appointments at the Ontario Securities […]
(March 24, 2005) In many public companies, maybe yours and definitely ones in your clients’ portfolios, boards are juggling the sticky and increasingly complex question of what management is worth — and how to dole out compensation without those decisions coming back to haunt share prices. On Thursday, Watson Wyatt Worldwide released its fourth annual […]
(March 22, 2005) In the next couple of years, economic growth in many countries will be dependent on domestic demand while the U.S. dollar stabilizes. Business and consumer spending are going to buoy the Canadian economy in 2005, the dollar will likely finish the year around 80 cents US and the Bank of Canada will […]