Movement Towards Financial Title Regulation Expands Across Canada

To investors and consumers of financial services, titles used by professionals can be confusing and, to date, have been largely unregulated - but this is starting to change.

In July 2020, Saskatchewan passed the Financial Planners and Financial Advisors Act (the Saskatchewan Act), which was closely modeled on Ontario's Financial Professionals Title Protection Act, 2019 (the Ontario Act) with a goal of creating consistency across jurisdictions and streamlining compliance for industry members. When both regimes come into force, anyone who uses the Financial Planner (FP) or Financial Advisor (FA) titles in Saskatchewan and Ontario will be required hold appropriate credentials from a credentialing body approved by the regulator. Each regime delegates primary administration and oversight of the FP and FA credentials to approved credentialing bodies, with only basic threshold criteria set out for each title.