Weekend Reading: Canadian Financial Summit Edition

This week I want to highlight the upcoming Canadian Financial Summit, taking place October 22–25. This annual online event brings together some of the top personal finance experts in the country – and the speaker lineup this year is incredible.

You’ll hear new insights from David Chilton, Canada’s Wealthy Barber himself, along with Dr. Preet Banerjee, Shannon Lee Simmons, Rob Carrick, and many more.

I’ll also be presenting a session on pensions versus commuted values – a topic that comes up often in my work with public sector employees trying to decide whether to stay in their plan or take the cash value and invest on their own.

If you’re looking to sharpen your financial knowledge, here’s a taste of what you can expect from this year’s summit:

• How to plan your own retirement at any age
• Maximizing your corporate investing accounts
• Saving on taxes by optimizing your RRSP-to-RRIF transition
• Combining a DIY portfolio with an annuity for customized income
• Getting the most from your dividends vs. salary strategy as a small business owner
• How tariffs could impact your investments
• Transitioning from saving to spending in retirement
• Managing risk when you first retire
• Spousal RRSP and income-splitting strategies
• Optimizing your pension plan as you approach retirement

It’s free to attend, and you can register at CanadianFinancialSummit.com.

Now, on to this week’s links…

This Week’s Recap:

No posts from me since my last weekend reading update on why “alts” or alternative investments are growing in popularity for all the wrong reasons.

Last week I attended the Institute of Advanced Financial Planners (IAFP) Symposium in Nanaimo, BC. The event brought together 150 of the top financial planners in the country – the ones who truly look out for their clients’ best interests and want to consistently level up their own knowledge and skills to better serve their clients.

One highlight was the presentation by Tanya Staples on the retirement realities in Canada today – in particular the challenges facing women. She discussed how the motivators and barriers to financial planning differ significantly for men and women, driven by factors such as financial knowledge, risk tolerance, and life circumstances.

Indeed, women are often systematically sidelined in wealth-building, even though their life trajectories demand otherwise. Too often, women play second fiddle in financial decision-making, deferring to male partners in investing, budgeting, or planning. Yet women generally live longer, and frequently are left to manage large sums of money solo in later life. Add to this the hurdles of lower lifetime earnings, stereotypes, bias in financial services, and perceptions that women “don’t understand money” – and you’ve got a mountain to climb.

Promo of the Week:

I opened up my Wealthsimple app on Wednesday and was delighted to see that they now support multi-owner self-directed corporate accounts. That means we can begin the transfer of our corporate investing account from Questrade to Wealthsimple so all of our accounts are finally in one place.

The other good news is that we can also finally take advantage of the current “Summer” match program that is still ongoing until October 15th. We’ve now registered for the 1% matching promotion and can expect to receive about $5,600 in cash back paid over the next 12 months thanks to the ~$560,000 account transfer.

Here’s one more nudge for those of you on the fence.

I’ve already spoken with dozens of readers and clients who have taken advantage of this promotion and are on their way to receiving thousands of dollars in cash back:

• Open a Wealthsimple account (here, use my referral link and get an extra $25: http://wealthsimple.com/invite/FWWPDW), and;
• Once you’ve opened an account, or if you already have an existing account, you’ll want to register for the Summer Match offer: http://wsim.co/Summer-Margin-Match-2025
• Initiate an account transfer from your Wealthsimple platform – it’s easy – within 30 days of registration.

One note: make sure to also open a Wealthsimple chequing account – that’s where the cash back bonus will be deposited.

Someone from Wealthsimple’s transfer support team will reach out via email offering to help. Take advantage of the support if you’ve never transferred accounts between institutions.

Weekend Reading:

It’s official – the annual TFSA contribution limit will remain at $7,000 in 2026. That takes the lifetime limit of to $109,000 for those who were at least 18 as of January 1, 2009. Look for the next $500 hike to the annual limit to be in 2027.

There are online financial influencers who give good advice, and then there’s stuff like this: Alberta ‘finfluencer’ who had no formal education in finance slapped with a $40,000 fine and a two-year ban from offering advice.

If you are investing through one of the big Canadian banks, you will want to watch this video:

Tanya Staples is studying what drives good retirement planning outcomes and her focus on women could make a real difference.

Retirement researcher David Blanchett explains how to use longevity protection and guarantees to create better retirement outcomes.

Defined Benefit pension plans are widely considered the gold standard in retirement income security, however, the many decisions throughout the member’s lifetime can have a significant impact on the amount of pension they ultimately receive.

You might think that access to more data than ever should make us better investors. Well, new data says no:

“The authors of the research suggest that more data leads to more overconfidence, which has long been associated with investor underperformance.”

Finally, check out Rob Carrick’s latest Substack where he shares a dozen thoughts on investing based on 30 years of experience.

Have a great weekend, everyone!