On Tuesday, April 23, American public television PBS aired an insightful one hour television program entitled “The Retirement Gamble” which highlighted the impact of high mutual fund fees on retirement security. The program stressed the fact that a 2 percent annual mutual fund fee can strip savers of almost two-thirds of returns over 50 years, leaving the investor with only one-third of the returns in exchange for risking all the capital. According to John Bogle…

FAIR Canada has submitted comments to Canadian securities regulators, stating that urgent reforms must be made to the mutual fund fee structure in order to protect consumers. With over 12 million Canadians owning mutual funds, and 72% of Canadians with RRSPs holding mutual funds within their RRSPs, it is clear that mutual funds are important to the retirement savings and financial security of Canadians. Improved disclosure is important but is inadequate to address the serious conflicts of interest presented by embedded (hidden) commissions (referred to as trailing commissions). These conflicts are systemic and structural in nature and are not addressed by current regulatory initiatives. To address these serious issues, we urge the banning of third-party embedded commissions…

FAIR Canada provided comments to the British Columbia Securities Commission (“BCSC”) in response to its request for comments arising from its proposed prospectus exemption to assist capital raising by small business. FAIR Canada disagrees with removing the requirement to provide audited financial statements in connection with the Offering Memorandum (“OM”) prospectus exemption. A critical review of the level of investor protection afforded under the OM prospectus exemption needs to be undertaken…

The Federal Government has released the final regulations which will govern external complaints bodies that will handle complaints made by consumers that have not been resolved successfully through the internal complaints process at the bank. The regulations are not substantively different from the proposed regulations that came out last April and on which FAIR Canada provided its comments…