FAIR Canada was invited to make a presentation in Ottawa on May 12, 2010 to the Task Force on Financial Literacy. During her presentation, Associate Director Ilana Singer focused on the following FAIR Canada recommendations:

1) Create and fund a permanent institutional structure through which a national financial literacy strategy can be coordinated and implemented. The body must be accountable to the highest levels of government. Its implementation must be championed by a senior government leader, such as the Federal Minister of Finance.

2) It is incumbent on the Task Force to recognize the long-term nature of any financial literacy strategy and, in the short-term, look to other tools to protect Canadian investors and to help them make wise, “financially literate” choices, including for example:

• Create an independent not-for-profit body to provide low cost, independent financial planning advice, particularly for low-income Canadians;
• Provide Canadians with a simple, low cost, professionally managed option to invest their retirement savings by creating a national, supplemental pension plan, to be offered to Canadians by the CPP and/or other large pension plans; and
• Urge financial regulators to take a hard line at combating misleading advertising and marketing practices of Canada’s highly competitive and well-funded financial industry. Investors across Canada need to understand both the risks and benefits of any investment decision they make. This, too, will help steer Canadians toward “financially literate” investment choices, particularly in today’s increasingly complex financial marketplace.

For the full FAIR Canada submission to the Task Force, click here.