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APRIL 2020
24 PAGES
CANADA’S NEWS SOURCE FOR FINANCIAL PROFESSIONALS
ECONOMY
INSIDE
NEWS
COVID-19 Uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus pandemic has spawned grim economic outlooks. PG. 1
BONDS Treasury bills sold at a discount and due in a year or less are holding up well during this crisis. PG. 8
NEWSMAKER Blair Driscoll, CEO of FAX Capital Corp., sees opportunity in small-caps. PG. 10
FUND PERFORMANCE Top- performing seg fund families in 2019 focused on high-quality equities. PG. 11
PROFIT SURVEY Big banks are in the best shape to endure the coronavirus crisis. PG. 12
BYB
COACHING CLIENTS Motivate your clients to stay the course and avoid making rash decisions during the Covid-19 crisis. PG. 18
DIGITAL ESTATES Help your clients take inventory of their online accounts and manage their digital assets. PG. 19
PROFILE Lisa Elle runs a tech- savvy practice in Cochrane, Alta., and focuses on serving women as clients. PG. 20
FOCUS ON PRODUCTS
RESOURCES The natural resources sector has been impeded by slow global economic growth. PG. 21
INSIGHT
EDITORIAL A Nesbitt report from 2005 that warned of the current crisis makes for sobering reading. PG. 22
EDINBURGH Scotland realizes it has lagged badly with its Covid-19 preparations. PG. 22
THINKING SMALL
PAUL LAWRENCE
Blair Driscoll discusses how Toronto-based FAX Capital Corp. is taking advantage of market volatility by investing in small-cap Canadian companies. (See story on page 10.)
COVID-19
Regulators adapt to crisis
Outlook shrouded in
doubt
BY JAMES LANGTON
when news of the covid-19
outbreak first emerged, econo- mists estimated the illness would have a modest negative effect on Canada’s economy. Those hopes have been thoroughly dashed as growing efforts to contain the dis- ease now must trade a sharp drop in economic output for lower vol- umes of death and critical illness.
Initial forecasts of the pan- demic’s economic impact were premised on the idea that just a handful of sectors — airlines,
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FATCA,
10 years on
BY RUDY MEZZETTA
in the decade since the
U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) was introduced, the legislation has reshaped cross-border tax plan- ning considerations significantly for U.S. citizens and Canadian holders of U.S. green cards.
“[Ten years ago], it would be just a few very compliant tax- payers that would be consid- ering issues on both sides of the border,” says Christine Perry, partner with Gowling WLG
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Dealers attempt to comply as staff work remotely
BY JAMES LANGTON
the covid-19 crisis is for-
cing financial services firms and regulators to rethink their pro- cedures. The current period of extreme volatility is exacerbated by the need to avoid human
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contact — an added challenge that is the source of most of the immediate regulatory concerns.
Karen McGuinness, senior vice president, member regula- tion, compliance, at the Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada (MFDA), reports that the most common questions the self-regulatory organization (SRO) is receiving from deal- ers involve attempts to main- tain compliance while adopting remote working arrangements and serving clients remotely.
“While members are still required to meet their regulatory obligations, we will be reason- able and flexible on how compli- ance is achieved,” she says.
For example, some deal- ers have informed the MFDA that they are carrying out their branch reviews remotely rather than on-site. “We think that is a reasonable alternative in the cir- cumstances,” McGuinness says.
Regulators are taking similar
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