An organization Canadian investors should know about and follow is called FAIR Canada. As per the explanation of who they are at faircanada.ca:
FAIR Canada is the only national, non-profit, independent investor advocate in Canada. We are a trusted voice that provides informed, objective comment on significant issues that have an impact on investor fairness and protection.
One recent example of successful advocacy on their part working with other national bodies such as the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP), is to get the federal government to only allow one national ombudsman entity for consumers regarding financial-related complaints. It is called the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments (OBSI) and all complaints in Canada will be addressed soley by them starting in November this year.
Most recently in 2024, FAIR Canada applauded Saskatchewan through passing new legislation to grant OBSI in their province binding arbitration. Saskatchewan also broadened their Financial and Consumer Affairs Authority’s penalty for violations of securities laws from $100,000 to $1 million.
In line with strongly encouraging and even imploring all stakeholders and participants in investments and banking on doing whatever they can to detect and prevent fraudsters from duping Canadian investors, FAIR Canada published a guide in 2022 called A Guide to Protect Yourself Against Investment Fraud. It is very well done and includes a link under investor resources to a CNBC video featuring an interview with the real Catch Me If You Can movie con artist Frank Abagnale. He says there are two main red flags to look out for.
Just click on the highlighted link to Fair Canada’s Guide and you will find this 12-page document with a number of reliable sources of information that is easy to read and follow.
The more investors and those investing to build up their retirement nest egg can do to protect themselves from losing their hard-earned money the better off all of us will be. The losses go beyond individual tragedies to the economy as a whole.
Three other FAIR Canada publications worth checking out at the faircanada.ca website, especially in relation to the focus of this novaultnofault.com blog, is the 2023 one entitled Getting Your Money Back: An Investor’s Guide to Navigating Canada’s Complaint System, a 2017 Report on Vulnerable Investors Elder Abuse, Financial Exploitation, Undue Influence and Diminished Mental Capacity and the 2014 publication called A Canadian Strategy to Combat Investment Fraud.
