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www.insideHALTON.com |OAKVILLE BEAVER |Thursday, January 19, 2017 |22 T Newinvestmentdisclosure rules a good first step he rules of investing are changing. Finally. The investment statement you receive from your investment dealer is now required to be more transparent. Two new pieces of valuable infor mation will be provided. First, the dollar amount of fees ^IHalton D c n n ii halton.ca (| 311 REGION HALTO N SM A LL B U SIN ESS C EN T R E U p co m in g B usin ess Se m in a rs and P rogram s Starting a Small Business: An in-depth review of start-up requirements including business structures, registration, industry specific regulations and licences and taxes. Offered on two evenings: Wednesday, February 8 Halton Hills Public Library, Georgetown Branch 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. $25.50 (plus HST) / person and Wednesday, March 15 Burlington Central Library 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. $25.50 (plus HST) / person The sessions are casual, informative small groups of five or less. Every Tuesday 9 - 10 a.m. Halton Regional Administration Building Small Business Centre Free - registration required Futurpreneur Canada - General Information Session: If you're a young entrepreneur between 18 and 39 who is looking to start your own full-time small business, you could get up to $45,000 through the Futurpreneur Canada financing program. Start your future today! Third Tuesday of each month in 2017 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. Halton Regional Administration Building Small Business Centre Free - registration required Registration and pre-payment for all seminars are required as seating is limited. Marketing - Research and Cost Effective Ideas: Identify why and how conducting market research can impact your business success and learn some cost effective ideas to market your business. Wednesday, February 22 Milton Public Library, Main Branch 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. $25.50 (plus HST) / person Getting Started Information Session: A one-hour overview of rules and regulations for starting a business in Halton. Staff will guide you through a checklist for starting a new business. For more information on these events including registration details visit haltonsm allbusiness.ca or dial 311. Join our online community and get connected. Halton Region's 2 017 B u d g e t and B usiness Plan invests in key In frastru ctu re Ensuring value for taxpayer dollars and protecting Halton's strong long-term financial position are the focus as we prepare our annual budget. In December, Regional Council approved the 2017 Budget, which provides the financial plan for maintaining service levels in the community while making strategic investments and keeping the tax rate increase for Regional services within the rate of inflation. Highlights in the 2017 Budget include investments in state-of-good-repairfor infrastructure, Paramedic Services, the Halton Region Community Investment Fund, a Long-Term Water Meter Strategy and adjustments to rate revenue and structure. To learn more, visit halton.ca/budget. Meetings at Halton Region, 1151 Bronte Rd., Oakville, L6M 3L1 Feb. 7 Feb. 8 Gary Carr Regional Chair Visit halton.ca/meetings for full schedule. 1:30 p.m. Administration & Finance Cttee. 9:30 a.m. Regional Council 9:30 a.m. Health & Social Services Cttee. 9:30 a.m. Planning & Public Works Cttee. Feb. 8 Feb. 15 1 190117 <*> Please contact us, as soon as possible, if you have any accessibility needs at Halton Region events or meetings. you pay for receiving hnancial advice will be shown. For som e that will be a surprise. Past investor sur veys have asked cli ents questions about fees. Some clients re sponded they were not aware any fees were being paid. If you have had candid conversations with your hnancial advisor, you will be aware of the fees you pay. Many advisors have adopted a "fee-forservice" method of remuneration where fees are disclosed. Unfortunately, many advisors have been reluctant to disclose fees, and in som e cases, have attempted to conceal the reality that fees are paid for receiving advice. W hen their clients suddenly dis cover they have been paying for ad vice, som e clients will react strongly. The new disclosure rules start this year. For many, your next investment statement will be arriving soon. If you have been receiving little or no valuable hnancial advice, you have every reason to be concerned. The anticipated day of reckoning has been considered by som e advi sors, w ho have made changes to the way they do business. Some started to be more open about fees which is admirable. Bet ter late than never. Unfortunately, others have changed their registration category. They have moved from an area where new disclosure rules were fast approaching, to a category of registration that ignores the obliga tion of disclosure. The fact that this is even possible means those responsible for regu lating all the different categories of advisor registration need to col lectively co-ordinate their efforts at investor protection. The second part of these new disclosure requirements is perfor mance reporting. The theory is you can evalu ate your advisor based on the fees paid, and the results of that advice as measured by your rate of return. There is a problem here. Hopefully reviewing short-term performance results will not en courage clients and their advisors to react to normal market volatility, by buying and selling investments D o llars & S ense Peter Watson G u e st C o n trib u to r based on normal market fluctua tions. Investing is better done as a long term endeavor and cannot be mean ingfully measured by short-term re sults. That being said, requiring perfor mance numbers to be shown is an improvement. Both these new initiatives, fee disclosure and performance return disclosure, are good steps forward. Unfortunately, the disclose re quirements fall short. Some fees are not reported. Specihcally, the underling costs of own ing mutual funds. The Management Expense Ratio, often referred to as the MER, will not be reported. A client will see the fee disclosure on what is paid to the investment advisor and the investment dealer, but not fees paid to the mutual fund company. Clients w ho receive a fee disclo sure will automatically think this is the total investment fee. It seems extremely strange that some fees are disclosed and others are not. In m y opinion, and it is only my personal guess, is that the large mu tual fund companies had som e in fluence at being able to continue to hide their fees. If the regulators want fee disclo sure, then that is what they should have implemented. Full fee disclosure. The idea of fee disclosure is sound. The manner in which it has been implemented is weak -- Submitted by Peter Watson of Peter Watson Investments and Aligned Capital Partners Inc., MBA, CFP, R.FP, CIM, FCSI., Certified Financial Planner