The Value of Advice
Canadian retail investors have the benefit of access to
financial markets that are among the most developed and best
regulated in the world. They enjoy an unparalleled supply of
products and services to meet their financial and investment needs.
Advice is a key component of this dynamic marketplace, and
Canadians overwhelmingly choose to invest and manage their
financial decisions with the help of advisors.
The Canadian public policy debate about retirement savings,
however, has demonstrated a surprising lack of understanding and
appreciation of the value that advice brings to investors. Some of
the reference works supporting stakeholder positions in this debate
have systematically ignored or undervalued the advice component of
private sector solutions for improving retirement savings in
Canada. These stakeholders have claimed that public sector plans
cost less and are therefore preferable to private plans, with the
implication that individualized service and advice, largely absent
in the public plans, is of little or no value.
This Report attempts to set the record straight for this and
other public policy issues where advice plays a role. Throughout
the Report, the values we attribute to advice are supported by
fact-based, independent, third-party research available from
credible, published sources. The aim is to provide a clear,
unbiased view of what advice means to the financial well-being of
Canadians and their confidence in the future. In so doing, it is
hoped that this work will enable public policy-makers to better
assess the impact of measures that would impair or constrain the
advice market.
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The
Value of Active Management >>