FP Canada | E126
FP Canada | E126
Navigating Financial Planning with FP Canada: Insights from Tasha Batstone In this episode of 'Financial Planning for Canadian Business Owners,' host Jason interviews FP Canada President and CEO Tasha Batstone. The discussion centers around finding credible financial advisors, highlighting FP Canada's role as the certifying body for the CFP designation. Tasha details the rigorous standards and processes, including education, examination, experience, and ethics, that CFP professionals must meet. She also introduces the QAFP designation for financial planners handling less complex needs. The episode underscores the significance of maintaining high professional standards to protect the public and ensure quality financial planning. 00:00 Introduction to Financial Planning for Canadian Business Owners 00:56 Profiling FP Canada with Tasha Batstone 02:15 Understanding the CFP Standard 06:37 Path to Becoming a CFP Professional 14:28 The Role and Importance of QAFP 22:01 Accountability and Enforcement in Financial Planning 28:46 Why Work with a CFP Professional? 30:05 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Full Transcript
AI Edits from FP Canada - Podcast
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[00:00:00]
Jason Pereira: Hello and welcome to Financial Planning for Canadian Business Owners. Today on the show, we are going to cover ~another my series of ~where to find good advice. So I wanna make sure that people out there who wanna know where to find the right kind of financial planners and the people who are actually credible and know what they're doing, know where to turn.
And as part of that, I'm profiling FP Canada, the certifying body for the CFP in Canada. And in order to profile them, I've invited the president and CEO Tasha [00:01:00] Batstone on the show today to talk about it. Tasha, thanks for taking the time.
Tashia Batsone: Hi, Jason. ~Delighted to be here. ~
Jason Pereira: ~Always a good time to, ~always a pleasure to talk to you.
~I'll say that much. ~Tasha Batstone of FP Canada, tell us about what FP Canada is.
Tashia Batsone: It's interesting because FB Canada is not a membership organization. It is a certifying body. It's a national not-for-profit organization, and really our mandate and our vision is very much focused around advancing professional financial planning so that Canadians can get access to solid financial planning advice that will help improve their financial wellbeing.
Very simple, very straightforward, very clear for all of us who work at FP Canada.
Jason Pereira: Very clear, but does not diminish much goes into that. ~It's ~it's a lot to basically get people up to a standard where that can be the case.
Tashia Batsone: Yeah. And I think it comes down to, for us, it's what we live by.
We want Canadian, we have our Imagine 2030 vision is financial wellness for all Canadians. And that speaks to, de and [00:02:00] I and making sure that it's not just wealthy Canadians that have access to financial planning as an example. And how we look to do that is by advancing professional financial planning.
And that is the crux of what we do every single day and why we do it.
Jason Pereira: Excellent. Let's talk about the CFP standard and why it matters. Now, the CFP standard, many people are familiar with IT. Certified financial planner. That is the global gold standard on financial planning designation.
So talk to me about the CFP standard and why Canadian should care.
Tashia Batsone: When you sit back and you look at what dictates a profession, I think there are certain attributes that become really important, and those are what's embedded in the CFP standard. So first of all, you have to make sure people have the skills and competencies to be able to offer their services in a way that is professional and meets the needs of their clients.
So ~our, ~every three to five years we go through a process where we look at our, competency profile [00:03:00] to ascertain is the competency profile. Is what we're asking planners to be able to, or CFP professionals to be able to do appropriate in the context of the environment that we find ourselves in to best serve their clients.
And are there things that need to change and need to adjust? ~And if there are changes that need to happen, then we flow that through our education requirements and also into our examination requirements. ~So you have to make sure as a profession that your certification standards are current. They are set at the appropriate level and that they are very much focused on making sure that the individual providing that all important financial planning and advice is qualified and has the skills necessary to do that.
I think, that's a very detailed process that we go through ~on a regular ~on a regular basis to make sure that happens. I think the second thing is really making sure that there is appropriate professional standards established. So we spend a lot of time looking at the professional standards that we have as a profession and saying, are these fit for purpose?
You [00:04:00] mentioned the fact that we are part of a global organization. We are one of the Financial Standards and Planning Board, which is a global body. We are one of the ~affiliate ~28 affiliates across the world ~that, ~that offer the CFP designation. They develop standards of professional responsibility on a global scale, and then we take those standards and we say, are they fit for purpose in Canada?
Do we need to do more? So as a minimum, we meet the global standards, but oftentimes because of the sophistication of the Canadian market, we have to go above and beyond the global standards. And then the third, and part of those global standards of, professional responsibility include a code of ethics.
So there's an expectation, an ethical standard, an ethical requirement that you will always act in the client's best interest. And then the third part of what I think is really important is you have to have some way of regulating [00:05:00] the individual's, adherence to those professional standards.
So you have to have a very robust complaints process and a discipline process that is, has independence, has rigor, it has, it, it has fairness and transparency in the process. There's a lot of best practice out there that FP Canada does to make sure that we are leading in terms of the sophistication and the complexity and the appropriateness of all of our, enforcement processes.
It's really that that three thing, those three things, right? Making sure that the individuals who carry the credential have the right training, have the right experience, have the right ethical. Framework the three E's, making sure that you have very high level expectations in terms of professional responsibilities that are designed to protect the public.
And third, making sure that you actually do the [00:06:00] work, to reflect that in terms of how you oversee the individuals with carrier credential.
Jason Pereira: Excellent. And, listeners of this show will know that, end of the day, this is an ever evolving field because the world evol around us is evolving. So the need to keep those standards, the need to keep on the body of knowledge going, it's not a small task, right?
~The ~every time a government passes a bill or, a new product, a new type of product enters the market, these are all things that are relevant to us. And basically impact the learning that you were making sure that we have. ~Again ~somebody's gotta make sure that those who basically claim or are holding out to do something actually have the skills and are enforced to that.
~So it makes perfect sense and we have you in Canada to, to thank for that. ~So let's talk about getting the CFP. So what's involved in getting this designation in place?
Tashia Batsone: Again, I'll go back to those three E's, right? You've got education. So first of all, in order to get your CFP, you have to have a university degree.
We do provide for certain exemptions to the university [00:07:00] degree. We wanna make sure we're inclusive. ~So ~if somebody has had, significant industry experience, we will allow them to apply for that university degree exemption. We require our certificates to demonstrate technical expertise.
So we have a technical education program, and then once you've completed your technical education program, you go on to have to complete our professional education program. Our professional education program really looks at how do you apply a lot of that technical knowledge? How do you integrate it?
What are the professional skills you need in order to be able to operate and to be able to provide advice to clients? What's a good discovery process look like? How do you deliver a plan? How do you draft and prepare a plan so that you draw together all these very various technical topics into a cohesive document that is responsive to the goals the client has established?
And so that work happens in our professional education program. Once you've [00:08:00] completed the professional education program, of course you have to go in and do a very comprehensive examination. ~And I think, ~most of the people that I speak to who hold the CFP designation will suggest that's a very challenging and rigorous examination.
And then once at the same time, you have to be acquiring experience because we want our professionals to be experienced when they hold them out as CFP professionals, and that's a three year experience requirement. Along with a commitment to our code of standards, our rules of professional conduct and the ethical code that we require all of our professionals ~to ~to adhere to.
It really comes down to the education, the examination, ~the experience of fores, actually ~the experience. And the ethics,
Jason Pereira: all of which are absolutely necessary to ensure that a profession is actually acting in the best interests of the people they're serving. Knowing what you're doing, ~make, staying up to date, ~making sure that you have the ethical code, having the enforcement mechanisms, these are all hallmarks of a true profession.
Tashia Batsone: That's no different than what you would see for accountants, lawyers, doctors, or any other professional.
Jason Pereira: But as I say, luckily for society, [00:09:00] those professions have had thousands of years to figure it out. In some cases, we're still very new, but we are moving fast and, I'm glad to see that. I think I'm gonna stop here and talk about one recent change, like the university, or sorry, the post-secondary education is a newer criteria, is it not?
Tashia Batsone: Yeah, it was introduced in, 2019. ~Yeah. Became effective 20, I can't remember. The data became effective, but ~the idea behind it was that, there are certain skills. ~Quite honestly ~that people should acquire through a university education or through a post-secondary education that are not necessarily, related to the technical knowledge you get, but that build some of those professional skills that are really important in a professional.
Things like, the ability to think critically. The ability to communicate effectively, the ability to work well in groups and teams, ~that was, are ~those are very important attributes for someone who was a CFP professional to hold accordingly. We expect that, but it's also the reason why ~we know that ~we are comfortable with the idea ~that a, ~an experience requirement.
Can also help an individual develop those same skills. So if you were somebody that's been working in industry [00:10:00] for 10 years chances are you have developed the ability to think critically developed. That analytical mindset, that ability to work in a team that we're looking for when we established that degree requirement.
Jason Pereira: Yeah. I'm also gonna say that I think long-term strategically, it was a positive move because people think that, oh, it'd be more relevant if there was a degree in financial planning, but. People don't understand that education in itself, especially as post-secondary, can be a business and is a business for the most part.
And a lot of times, university curriculums will only follow where the demand for graduates is in an industry. You used to work for the CPA association, about close ties between academia and with, ~and with ~education and Canada unfortunately. We lack, a lot of op, we lack many options for financial planning curriculum, and there's no undergrad in financial planning, at least to my knowledge at this point, still in Canada.
Whereas in the US these moves have been positive because you have dozens of universities where you can get an undergraduate degree in financial planning, and several, we can even get. Everything up to a PhD. So I look at what, that change has not [00:11:00] only been beneficial in terms of, ~getting, ~making sure the candidates that are coming in are valuable.
But I think it was a very wise, long-term strategic move that I've always endorsed because I think it helps create the potential long-term demand for post-secondary education specific to the field.
Tashia Batsone: And I think, that's an interesting point, Jason, because that's something that we have, we know you were aware that we just launched our 25 to 2030 strategic plan.
And as part of that, one of our areas of focus is enhancing the number of accredited financial planning programs in Canada. There are already a number of psis that have been accredited ~and, ~but they don't necessarily produce. A lot of CFP or QAFP professionals. And so what we're looking to do is reset some of those relationships with a real focus on helping students understand the value of financial planning as a career.
How, what it looks like to be a financial planner. You know what kinds of [00:12:00] salaries you can earn as a financial planner, because you're right, if the students start to recognize and ask for it. Universities are gonna provide or the post-secondaries are gonna
Jason Pereira: ~provide. Yep. And I think beyond that I remember when I first discovered this in the US I thought to myself, lemme get this straight.~
You have people who can take a four year degree, graduate with financial planning certificate, go work at a financial planning firm as an intern. Basically learn the ropes from the advisors there, the planners there while studying for the CFP, get a CFP and then go hang a shingle. Like I was like, okay, this is exactly where we need to go as a profession, is to have that direct line of post-secondary education graduating towards a certificate.
But again, being a newer profession, that is something that's gonna take time to develop. And again, I will say that this is all leading in the right direction.
Tashia Batsone: So just wanted to mention to you though, but I do think there is a value. To bringing in a broader group of individuals who have even if we got to a point where there were a number of financial planning, post-secondary programs in Canada, I would imagine that, we [00:13:00] would still have that post-secondary degree requirement be brought because this industry, in this profession in particular, people come through many different paths. They find their way in many different ways. And we even experienced that in the CPA program. You would see music majors and we never required a degree a post-secondary degree in accounting.
We acquired a post-secondary degree because we were, knew that there were different paths, which is the reason why within the profession we then had the technical education and the pre, professional education. So you had options. You could go through a financial planning degree. Come out pretty much exam ready, or you can go another path.
Find your way into this profession and still not be at a disadvantage in terms of just being able, you could just go ahead, come into FP Canada's technical Education professional education program, get through that program. ~Probably in about 18 months to two years. ~Then move directly into the exam and get your experience requirements [00:14:00] simultaneously with that.
In many instances
Jason Pereira: I can see that because, if everybody ~into ~entering into a field is simply mired in one way of thinking and education, then that actually dampens the ability of that industry to evolve. We can point to the fact that psychologists created behavioral finance, which is now becoming a bigger and bigger piece of everything we do.
~And the, ~even the likes of companies like Apple who very much have stated openly that they value people with liberal arts. Backgrounds because they bring non-technical thinking to their actual product and developments. So absolutely, I do believe that those perspectives are valuable.
But now one thing you mentioned very briefly that I wanna go back to, 'cause we glossed over it quickly. Was the second designation that you basically offer and that's the QAFP care to speak to that designation and where it fits in?
Tashia Batsone: Yeah, I mean it's to me, all about where, where the journey, where the client's journey is.
You will have clients who have less complex planning needs, and you will have clients who have very complex planning needs. And the QAFP is really designed for [00:15:00] financial planners who want and who desire to work with clients who have less complex financial planning needs. The curriculum has been designed that it doesn't necessarily go as deep into those complex topics because the reality of it is if you have a client that needs that kind of, advice you should be referring them to a CFP and you can look at it from a ~d ~couple of different perspectives. You can say maybe that's clients who are earlier in their careers and don't have the same kind of, planning requirements. They're that much longer away from retirement.
They're probably more focused on specific areas. ~They, ~they don't have complex ~family business. ~Family businesses, they're building their wealth. So it's an opportunity for, a planner to work with a client as they're building their wealth. I can give you a good example.
~My, do ~my daughter is a physician, so she's a resident and she's looking at working, she has in the [00:16:00] past been working with A-Q-A-F-P because that met her needs at the time. As her business grows and as her financial planning needs become more complex when she has a family, potentially when she has her own practice, et cetera, I would fully expect she's going to need to transition her business over to A CFP professional.
And the interesting thing is, there's an opportunity here for someone who's A-Q-A-F-P to potentially move then up to CFP because we do have a very expedited bridge to get you from QFP to CFP. So ~you could almost see. ~The client and the planner working together on their journey and each becoming more sophisticated as they continue that relationship.
And so it's a way to get people into the financial planning profession and some, for some folks that may be their ultimate destination. And then for other individuals, they might say, you know what? I've been A-Q-A-F-P, for, X number of years, I can use the title. Financial planner because, under Ontario's title protection we have QAFP [00:17:00] recognized as well as CFP.
It's still robust. It still requires a four E's that we talked about. Education, it has its own professional education program that focuses a little bit more on the topics that would be relevant when you're working with a client with less complex needs. And then, what it also allows us to do is create a path where we can also help encourage diversity in the profession.
So if you're somebody who's new to Canada and you'd like to be a financial planner, maybe this is a path that you could choose ~to get to, ~to get that sort of initial experience with the profession. Or if you're a younger individual and you just want to be able to use the title this gives you a very comprehensive starting point.
Then you can build upon as your career progresses. So it's very much about creating ~op, create ~options within the ecosystem. But regardless of whether you're a CFP professional or you're A-Q-A-F-P professional, you're technical knowledge may be slightly [00:18:00] different and will be different. However, you are still held to the same code of professional responsibility.
You're held to the same code of conduct, and you are subject to the same kinds of oversight, as a professional. So you know that public protection is not diminished ~in any man ~in any way, shape or form. And the QAFP professional has the skills and knowledge to be able to provide financial planning services within the context of understanding those.
Less complex needs.
Jason Pereira: Yeah, it was interesting. I remember when it was first launched and I had lunch with your predecessor shortly after, and I said, okay, what's the thinking hit me with this. And he likened it to, basically nurse practitioners and doctors and paralegals and legal lawyers.
~And ~I dug a little deeper and I found, from people who had experience around this, that this model's been done around the world and it makes perfect sense, right? This podcast, for lack of a better term, is overkill for so many Canadians, right? It's targeted specifically at business owners, but.
The reality is that the average consumer ~does need, ~does not need a lot of what I talk [00:19:00] about on this podcast, the fundamental things around planning and taxation and personal side stuff. Yes, but, to hold everybody to the ability to be able to perform heart surgery in order to hold a financial planning designation when frankly, you need a family doctor for most things.
Doesn't make a lot of sense. So I basically found that around the world that there's been a bifurcation or there's been ~a dual ~a dual designation kind of path in a lot of different countries to meet this needs of the average consumer. And it makes, ~when I heard that, I made ~perfect sense.
Now, they tried this in the US and it didn't go over so well because I think they called it CFP Light. That was probably a branding mistake. But that being said, I think it's made perfect sense in Canada. And I think that over time, as people come to recognize, ~a ~it's a mass market.
Type of planning designation that ~can also be a road ~does not preclude people from basically learning the more complex stuff. It's gonna help to meet the needs of more people. So I'm glad you guys did it.
Tashia Batsone: ~It's been a, ~it's been a bit of ~a ~a slow burn as people are just trying to recognize what the difference is.
And we still have work to do around communicating both Canadians into employers, the distinction between CFP and [00:20:00] QAFP. If you look at other jurisdictions like Japan for example, who does have. The associate model and the CFP, there are four times as many associate, I think three to four times as many associate financial planners in Japan as there are CFP professionals because you're right, it is more of a mass market credential and logically it makes a lot of sense.
For us, when you go into a world where advice is the new product. So if you're someone who is licensed to sell mutual funds in a retail side of a bank, in many instances today, you're not just providing a mutual fund. Your client is coming in and they're asking about what's the best mechanism to hold this mutual fund?
Should it be in A-T-F-S-A? Should it be in our RSP? Should it be, in some kind of a home savings account? ~You know that and you sit back and you go I'm not sure right. ~You should be able to give them that kind of advice. And they may ask you for basic advice about, why should I get a will or what's an estate plan look like, for me?
Or, some basic investment advice. What's the difference [00:21:00] between a mutual fund and a stock and, et cetera. And you should be able to not only provide those topics in a linear ~sort of, or. In a ~sense where you're just looking at each one individually. You should be able to tie them together and integrate them.
Yeah. And so to me, anybody who's working as an advisor in a retail side of a bank, the QAFP is something that they should be looking at, obtaining.
Jason Pereira: And having worked on title protection frameworks around the country, that's largely been the framework that we pitched was like, listen, you're gonna have these vertical specific financial advisor, roles, but that should not, and they're gonna know a lot about, that mutual, investments or insurance, whatever else it is.
But that should not preclude their knowledge. ~From basically going cross dimensional to other areas and other silos to understand how what they're doing impacts other things. Should they, ~should the mutual fund guide necessarily understand, the intricacies of whole life versus universal life?
No, but should be able to, when the client asks them, ~says ~Hey, do I need insurance? You have kids, you have a mortgage, you have all this. Yeah, you should talk to an insurance person, right? Should be able to know exactly, know what they don't know and know to basically, but identify a need for that client.
~Again, hopefully, again, ~this podcast ~again ~is almost a testament to this [00:22:00] specialization within those in verticals. So ~let's, we've talked a lot about, basically. The different designations and what's involved in getting them. ~Let's talk about accountability enforcement. How are you keeping everybody essentially honest and when I say honest, like end of the day, no profession that basically fails to police its own.
It should be trusted, in my opinion. At the end of the day, we have to make sure that if we're claiming to live up to these standards, we should be living up to these standards. So talk to me about the role you play there, what that process looks like and why Canadian consumers who basically turn to A-C-C-F-P or QAFP should rest well knowing that they're being properly monitored.
Tashia Batsone: Yeah. I think there's a number of different areas. The first thing is you gotta have the professional standards, right? The standards of practice, the ethical standards, the requirements, because without those, it's very hard to. ~In a transparent, fair, accountable process ~evaluate whether or not somebody has met the standards.
So to me, ~and ~that's the piece that sometimes gets missed. ~People don't, ~people sit back and they go, ~you have to, ~you have to have a complaint, you have to have a disciplinary process. ~Yeah. ~All of that is critical, but you have to have something against which to evaluate that behavior.
And make sure that behavior is in, what's that [00:23:00] acceptable behavior and what's not acceptable within the profession. And that's what the rules of, that's what the rules of conduct, rules of professional responsibility really look at. And like I said to you before, those are constantly being updated at FP Canada.
So for example, in our standards of ~respon ~professional responsibility, we just, in June, 2024, update it to say, what is a role that a certificate cannot accept relating to a client's estate or property when providing financial planning advice or services? So it wasn't, it was a clarification of that because there's been a lot of cases that have come forward where those kinds of challenges have arisen.
And so this is this process that we go through on an ongoing basis with our standards panel to ascertain do we have the right standards and are they truly, robust enough to protect the public interest? Or there things that we need to add, change, modify, for example. And then you have to have a very robust [00:24:00] complaints handling process.
And it's not just about getting a complaint from the public. You have to have that mechanism whereby the public has a way of being able to make a complaint and they know where to make that complaint too. But you also have to be more proactive. You have to be looking at what other regulators are doing.
For example, so if CRO is out and CRO has a complaint against, someone who is A-Q-A-F-P or A CFP professional, and that's something that we look at to see whether there has been anything that individual has done that's contrary to our rules of professional conduct. So we, and then we ask our certificates, and you've been part of this.
To, make certain declarations when they renew their certification, that they're not bankrupt, for example, just, just to give you one of them. And if a certificate doesn't, it is not forthcoming or not honest on that renewal, there's another grounds for where we can ~initially ~initiate a complaint.[00:25:00]
So we have a variety of mechanisms that we use. It's coming in from the public, it's actively seeking out, and it's also based on ~these self ~these statements that we expect our professionals to adhere to. Once you have a complaint process in place, ~and then you have to have, ~you have to have a very fair, transparent process ~fair to the, ~so that it's fair to the person who has been complained against.
And it's also fair to the complainant. And that process has to have, it has to have certain tenants in it, it has to be very clear. It has to be established, and so people understand what they're required to do and why it has to be timely. For example, one of the things that we do to, we have certain standards that we monitor as to how quickly we are managing cases through different parts of the process.
Depending on the complexity of the case, we may not always meet those standards, but at least the complainant and ~the ~the person against whom the allegation has been made understands the [00:26:00] process and how on a standard basis that should happen. We also report on that, by the way. We publish an annual standards counsel report that speaks to, how we have met those service standard requirements and then finally.
You have to have a process that is transparent and independent. So independent means that, yes, you have to be evaluated by, panels of your peers, right? So we have our ~complaints, authorization committee ~complaints, authorization committee reviews, the investigation that's been done, and decides whether it's appropriate to have a guidance issued or whether ~it needs to move on to, or whether ~there's been no wrongdoing, or whether it needs to move on to a hearing.
That complaints authorization committee is comprised not only of CFP and QAFP professionals, but also members of the public, because we wanna make sure that we've got that external view as well, because again, we're doing this to ensure protection of the public. Then ~the second, and ~if something proceeds onto a hearing panel, ~then ~we have a whole hearing panel [00:27:00] roster of individuals with experience in administrative law who we can pull together into a ~hearing panel, ~three person hearing panel so that, the individual again gets, ~a fair and ~a fair hearing.
Then finally, anything that comes out of our, any decisions that come out of our hearing panel are public. So you know, you can go onto the FP Canada website, you can see the outcomes of all of our hearings, and in fact, if you go into our find a planner tool, ~I. ~It will also link to anything. So if you go into a finer planner tool and you put a planner's name in, it will also indicate ~with that plan, ~with that individual's name, if there's been any outstanding disciplinary actions against them.
Because again, this comes down to protection of the public.
Jason Pereira: Yep. And I will emphasize that the public needs to think about that. And I talk to you all the time, you're gonna hire an advisor, make sure you do a quick search, right? Odds are the vast majority of them. Do not have a regulatory, issue. But the number of times I've had people say I've been talking to this person.
~I'm just like. ~Are you aware of this issue that happened? Because, [00:28:00] again, ~being abreast of ~keeping abreast of what happens in the industry, certain names, will ring a bell ~and ~unfortunately these people are seeing these issues after the fact, and unfortunately also, in this industry you can basically move around.
You can basically say, you know what, I'm not gonna be a CFP anymore because you guys did whatever. I'm gonna go call myself an advisor somewhere else that whatever else it is. And so you have to be diligent. Unfortunately, the consumer has to be diligent, but all we can ~do is, and as you ~do, is put out that information to make sure that they know if someone's in good standing or not.
Tashia Batsone: Then, we launched a new website, this fall. It's very easy to find. It's very easy ~to, to both, ~to go into the find a planner tool and also to go into our, history of disciplinary actions and search to see if there's been any cases. And all of our cases are published, for example, on candidates.
So we've been, we are very transparent with that.
Jason Pereira: Very transparent. Excellent. So before we wrap up, ~I'm gonna give you one last pitch. Like, ~why work with the CFP professional? ~What can the, what, ~why should the public be focusing on CFPs?
Tashia Batsone: I think it's everything that we've said thus far, right?
Absolutely. We are, we are an organization that is focused and our [00:29:00] certificates are focused on providing advice to clients that is in their best interest. ~And, ~and that's something that they have to do to be, first and foremost, ~they have to do, ~they have high quality training.
There's an expertise there that, is regularly reviewed, regularly looked at. And on top of it all, every CFP and QAFP professional is required to do continuing education. So not only are they highly trained at the point of entry into the profession, but we require very stringent continuing education because as you say, a lot of things change over time.
We wanna make sure that people maintain their competence. ~And I think, the other part is that we do our due diligence. ~We invest significantly in making sure that the public is protected, as it relates to individuals who carry our credentials. So we've got robust processes, like any profession, they're held to those very high standards of professional competence, personal competence, personal integrity, [00:30:00] ethics.
And having suitable experience to be able to meet the needs of Canadians.
Jason Pereira: ~Excellent. ~Tasha, thank you so much for your time today.
Tashia Batsone: Thanks Jason. ~Appreciate the conversation. ~
Jason Pereira: So that was Day's episode, Tasha Bastow from Epi Canada. If you are in the market for a financial planner, then by all means, yes.
A great place to start is the FP Canada find a planner tool as well as some of the other companies or associations I'm profiling. So as always, if you enjoyed this, podcast, please leave a review on Apple Podcast or wherever else you listen to it. And if you're on YouTube, please and subscribe.
Until next time, take care.[00:31:00]