Red Ink on the Prairies

A day after Quebec’s Finance Minister Eric Girard brought down a Budget featuring a $6.3 Billion deficit, Saskatchewan’s Finance Minister Jim Reiter tabled his government’s budget on March 19. Next up was Finance Minister Adrian Salas, who tabled the Manitoba Budget on March 24. The common thread: there’s lots of red ink on the Prairies. But that’s where the budget documents differ between Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Here’s the latest tax news and why it matters to the advice you give your clients.

What matters is what you keep.  There is no doubt your clients are  interested in knowing how to inflation-proof and recession-proof their wealth and navigate successfully through emerging risks from the CRA.  To accomplish the former, advisors must have broader knowledge in tax on upcoming tax changes and how astute investment planning in a very new economic environment can help clients maximize after-tax income and reduce capital erosion.  But there are other risks, too, and these topical issues will be the subject of a deep dive for pros at the September 21 CE Summits.

There are six key reasons, you will want to mark your calendar to attend the next Meeting of the Minds Event, presented by the Society of Real Wealth Managers™ on August 17, 11:00 – 12:00 PM CST. It’s a complimentary event, and it could be one of the most informative hours of your summer.  Consider:

With the Bank of Canada recently announcing another 100 bps increase in the overnight rate to 2.5%, clients are asking more and more about how this will affect their mortgages, the impact to their cash flow, and ultimately the impact to their overall financial plans.  

Seniors over the age of 74 will have been delighted by the raise they received in their Old Age Security Benefits in July of 2022. The specifics of the new permanent increase, its effect on the clawback of OAS and other new details follow:

Statistics Canada is reporting that a shortage of labor continues to be a significant issue for 35% of businesses in Canada, while skilled labor shortages are an obstacle for close to 28%. Those who responded to Knowledge Bureau’s July Poll agreed:  91.67% said yes, their clients are finding it more difficult to hire skilled people in 2022. 

Can ethical behaviour be regulated? Can we eliminate all of the “Bad Apples’ with regulation or does it take more? Is it possible that ethical behaviour is a byproduct of a “culture of care”? In other words, when it comes from the heart, is ethical behaviour a standard on its own? Organizations must be sure and so, they must back up a culture of care with strategy and processes to ensure consistency.  CEO of CANFIN, Tony Mahabir who will share his inspiring insights on how to accomplish this against the backdrop of increasingly complex and expensive regulation.