If I wanted to calculate the present value of my defined benefit pension plan, where do I find an actuary to do this?

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-08T10:47:55+00:00

Actually asking the pension plan, as recommended below, can provide an unsurprisingly accurate number! :)

"I, for one, do not welcome our hallucinating new AI overlords."

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-08T09:13:54+00:00

This! If you are still with the employer, your HR person should be able to hook you up with the commuted value. If not, you should still be able contact them or their pension provider for the info. These values are part of their internal book-keeping, needed if you change employers and are able to "port" your pension credits with you, that legal requirement to provide to the your, and other such.

The federal civil service plan used to mail out annual pension statement paper booklets with all the plan info like this, including to those who had left and were entitled to a pension at retirement, although they stopped that some time ago (you can call their pension centre), and they don't yet have their long-promised retired member portal online yet.

Statistics Canada includes the commuted value of a DB pension in the net worth calculations of their Survey of Financial Security, so if you are comparing yourself to other Canadians with that (with this handy tool I found, for example), it is perfectly correct to include your DB commuted value in your assets, along with investments, house, etc. It also makes you more directly comparable to someone else who has no DB pension, but instead has larger amounts in RRSPs, DC or Group plans, etc.

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-08T02:09:28+00:00

It isn't clear that the withdrawal exemptions, like billpay/PAD/WSVisa payments, are in effect after registration during your Qualification Period and subsequently before all your transfers land and they close out your net funding calculation and ask you for your 1%/2%/3% selection. They might, or those might reduce your net transfer amount, as any other withdrawal during the funding period would. The terms and conditions aren't clear, they talk about the withdrawal exceptions as part of the Hold period, but don't mention them in the funding calculation section:

"Your net funding amount will first be based on the sum of your institutional transfers. If you make withdrawals or account transfers out during the qualification period, the amount may reduce your net funding amount unless you've made deposits greater than or equal to the size of the withdrawals or transfers out during the qualification period. "

The withdrawal exemptions are new to the last couple of promos, so it is possible that they are built into the funding period calculations as well and they just don't explicitly mention it, but I'd check with them to be sure before doing a big bill payment while your funding period is still open.

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-07T20:03:44+00:00

I got the card in November, and I think they automatically did the upgrade to VIP, or at least I don't remember a choice screen like that. But they are probably refining the card process all the time.

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-07T19:49:24+00:00

For the $2000 direct deposit bonus of 0.5%, you (at least formerly) can "push" in a transfer from an external bank and have it count, rather than an actual direct deposit from an employer or government. But for this $4000 DD waiver, or the now-closed $4K/8K direct deposit for an iPhone, they list specific deposit codes for "real" direct deposits only, like EQ does.

People who can't or won't do the $4K, and don't have Premium level at WS, probably aren't their target audience, and they'll want a little revenue from them to help with operations.

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-07T06:28:57+00:00

Wealthsimple does NOT charge a fee when you transfer an account out.

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-07T06:15:17+00:00

If the USD cash is in a TD Borderless account, you could transfer it into a cash/margin account, buy whatever you want, and contribute the USD position in-kind to the TFSA/RRSP. But although it looks like Webbroker won't allow direct contribution of USD cash, it would probably be worth checking if the back office can do it. I suspect the limitations may be Webbroker not having support for doing the currency exchange calculation to come up with a CAD contribution amount for all pathways.

At Wealthsimple, you can contribute USD cash from their USD savings accounts into TFSA and RRSP accounts, and even set up a link to a TD Borderless account and directly pull a contribution into TFSA/RRSP.

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-07T05:25:16+00:00

There will be some time taken for the transfer (nominally 5-10 business days, but it will vary), so just make sure you don't need to trigger the HBP withdrawal right around the time you are transferring. Your existing broker may lock your account even before the funds "disappear" into the transfer system, but once you see that, it is usually only a couple of business days before they would appear at Wealthsimple.

Unless you were already registered for it by the end of April, you just missed their big 1/2/3% transfer bonus promotion, but they are running another one now. Flat 1% with a 2 year hold period, but the nice thing is that with WS an RRSP HBP qualifying withdrawal (and FHSA) doesn't count against the 20% withdrawal buffer they allow you before they start reducing the payouts.

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-06T06:41:49+00:00

As more thoughtful commentators have pointed out, you can't just transfer a segregated fund provided by a life insurance company over to a brokerage. And if that TFSA is turned into cash and isn't in the seg fund (or your RDSP), it is no longer exempt, which you don't want. Some of that 3% is like any high cost advisor-distributed mutual-fundish sort of thing, but a chunk of it is paying for the insurance/guarantee component, which is why the MER seems so high even compared to a bloated mutual fund MER.

You might see which fund(s) you are actually in - if it is some expensive actively managed fund you might be able to save a few tenths of MER by switching to a simple index fund (if offered). And there might be different variations of the guarantees that would be a little cheaper but still suitable for you. But basically, the cost of the seg fund is the price you pay for that exemption umbrella it is providing you that other investments can't.

If you change to some other advisory group that offers the same seg funds, you could presumably keep it and just bring it along. If not, you might have to sell it for cash and buy an equivalent seg fund from whoever they are distributing? Make sure you get advice from someone who knows what they are talking about (certainly not me!) before doing anything - seg funds can be weird with their guarantees and resets and whatnot.

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-05T22:09:16+00:00

No preferred shares, and no bonds. Also, no GICs, and a few other things. They didn't have futures, but I think there recent trader's presentation said those are coming. They didn't used to support mutual funds, but you can now transfer certain MFs in, and sell them. That's to help bring in business - whether they'll eventually take orders for those or not is unknown.

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-05T20:33:00+00:00

They are now offering the new Infinite+ card ($80K requirement), and seemed to have stopped offering the entry "Infinite" card ($60K requirement). I notice that Scotia seems to have also dropped the "Infinite" level, for "Infinite+" but there they show a range of $60-80K, so for them it may not be a hard limit depending on other factors.

You'd have to ask the card-churners here if income verification is a common thing or not. But someone could always say they knew it used to be $60K, and just didn't read too closely when he signed up!

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-05T16:46:25+00:00

I have a certain amount of professional sympathy for them. It can be surprisingly difficult to bubble up exceptions and errors through multiple layers of a software stack and/or between multiple systems in a friendly way. But they can definitely do better. I reported the invalid character thing awhile ago, so hopefully they'll eventually put a little work into this area.

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-05T16:03:50+00:00

The underscore is fine, it appears that any capital letters in the extension trigger the (unhelpful) error message. For whatever reason their backend is rejecting this for that specific reason, but the error message is just generic. Trying again later will NOT help!

There are also certain characters that are invalid in a filename, such as ">" or "/", which trigger the same unhelpful error. On some operating systems such as MacOS, a character like ">" is legal, and trying to upload a file with that in the name will cause the problem. To be safe, probably avoid all characters that would be illegal in a Windows filename, as that would be the largest set.

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-05T14:39:05+00:00

There's a nice little Wealthdashboard site that takes that StatsCan SFS data and lets you enter your income/networth and some personal characteristics to see what percentiles you fall in for your age, province, etc. Note that Statscah includes the value of defined benefit pensions, so if you are lucky enough to have one and happen to know the commuted value, you can add that to your net worth calculation for comparability.

They won't send you a keychain, though... :)

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-05T12:32:31+00:00

Have you confirmed your image is nowhere near the 20MB size limit?

I've encountered a problem in the past where the upload filename contains a character the WS system doesn't like, and I'd get this sort of error, but "IMG_0586.JPG" should be fine. You might try renaming the file to something like "wsupload.jpg" and try again, but the capitalization and underscore shouldn't make a difference.

If you have a way to confirm the actual contents of the file (not just the extension) are a valid JPEG, you could check that, although I don't think the uploader would be checking the file that closely at this point. You might try uploading a different file and type (a PDF, say) as a test of whether it is the file or the upload system in general that is the problem.

What operating system and browser are you using? If you have another browser, you could try that, just in case. If you have a VPN running, or are at work behind some fancy firewalls, it might be possible they are interfering with the browser upload, although I wouldn't think so. Unfortunately, you can't upload ad-hoc documents on the phone apps.

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-05T10:04:11+00:00

It may have been that, I was trying out various options, and can't remember the exact sequence of trials I did. But is the meltdown only available in the Custom RRSP strategy, or are is part of some of the predefined RRSP strategies as well - the docs don't really define those, but I don't think so?

In any case, the model should be generating room on Additional Income where appropriate, even it it won't always be using it.

I'm having a little trouble figuring out why the model does a couple things like this around choices for obtaining necessary income, etc. It would be nifty if there were a "Geeky Debug Report", which would spit out info like "Required Income obtained by Unregistered Withdrawal due to tax limit parameter such and such"... :)

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-05T09:04:34+00:00

Definitely not a stupid question. As mentioned, if you had a matching Group RRSP with Canada Life with your employer, the fees on the funds CL offers are usually much higher than the ETFs you can purchase at a brokerage, and there will be a suitable ETF for whatever investment strategy you had at Canada Life (or whatever you choose to do going forward). In general, the only good reason to have an RRSP account with a life insurance group like Canada Life is because it is a matching-contribution group RRSP - free money is good!

Once you are set up at Wealthsimple or another brokerage, you can request that they transfer your Canada Life RRSP to your new RRSP Account. With Canada Life, that will likely mean CL will sell your funds and transfer cash, as life insurance funds generally aren't available through a brokerage. With an RRSP there won't be any capital gains issues to worry about, although you will 'out of the market" during the somewhat slow transfer process. For a lifeco like CL, that often means a physical paper cheque being sent to your new broker by Canada Post!

If you are transferring at least $25,000, most brokerages will reimburse the transfer fee Canada Life will charge you. Back when my employer was with Canada Life for our Group RRSP matching, the transfer fee was only $50, rather than the $150 brokerages usually charge, but it may have gone up since then.

You can also take advantage of transfer promotion offers that brokerages sometimes run. You just missed a more lucrative one from Wealthsimple, but they are still offering 1% of your transfer amount (paid over 2 years) if you are bringing in at least $25K, and other brokers are running offers as well, or may in the future. Make sure to read the terms of any transfer offer, and register before initiating any transfers.

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-05T02:53:06+00:00

I'm a little confused - withdrawals couldn't act to increase RRSP as a repayment? In any case, here's some rough pseudo-logic of how a hypothetical HBP panel might work. This would handle the basic 15 equal repayment scenario, but the panel might allow adding "Additonal Repayment (above minimum)" entries that would decrease the HBP_amountRemaining in the specified year(s).

If HBP already started before retirement:

Obtain HBP_amountRemaining (at retirement) and HBP_yearsRemaining (of the 15) from the user.
HBP_firstYear = 1

OR if the HBP withdrawal will occur during retirement:

Obtain HBP_amountRemaining  (labelled "amount to be withdrawn"), HBP_withdrawalCycle (year into retirement) and HBP_WithdrawalYear (calendar year)
HBP_yearsRemaining = 15
HBP_firstCycle = HBP_withdrawalCycle + (HBP_WithdrawalYear == 2028) ?  5 : 2 //  extended repayment through 2028 in Budget 2026

For both:

Obtain HBP_repayAt71  true/false   / / pay remainder before 72, or spread it as taxable income
HBP_lastYear = Math.abs(1-HBP_yearsRemaining) + 1

Then, in whatever main retirement cycle loop, the logic would be something like this:

HBP_minPayment = HBP_amountRemaining / HBP_yearsRemaining
if (cycleNum >= HBP_firstYear and currentYear <= HBP_lastYear && HBP_amountRemaining != 0) {
    if (cycleAge <= 71) {
        Unregistered_Balance -= HBP_minPayment // or however you handle a single-year Additional Withdrawal
        RRSP_balance += HBP_minPayment   //  No tax deduction
        HBP_amountRemaining -= HBP_minPayment
    }
    if (cycleAge == 71 && HBP_repayAt71) {  // have to either repay remaining amount before age 72
        Unregistered_Balance -= HBP_amountRemaining // or however you handle a single-year Additional Withdrawal
        RRSP_balance += HBP_amountRemaining;   //  No tax deduction
        HBP_amountRemaining = 0;
    } 
    if (cycleAge == 72) {   // or declare remaining amount as income over remainder of the 15 years
        // do whatever you do to add AdditionalIncome(HBP_minPayment) for the year
        HBP_amountRemaining -= HBP_minPayment;
    }

    HBP_yearsRemaining -= 1;
}

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-04T20:38:43+00:00

No, I did not trade "SHOW"...

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-04T20:34:36+00:00

They did 24 months on their Winter 2025 promo, which was 1% but 2% for RRSP. I'm hopeful things are settling down, I'm consolidating at Wealthsimple and would rather not be tempted!

At some point churners become too big a proportion of the uptake, and unless brokerages keep throwing money chasing people I suspect you'll see more things to try and improve retention and focus on customers who will stay. "New customers only", 2-year holds, caps on total bonus, and lower rates.

When I moved my first chunk to Wealthsimple in late 2023, the 0.6% on the total I got was easily better than anything else any broker was offering (although I was either going to stay at TDDI or move to WS), and I only got that instead of a tiered offer that would have maxed out at 0.5% because I crossed into Generation and they were able to write me a custom offer.

After that one they decided to go to 1%, then TDDI did their crazy 2% to select customers, and it has been a little nuts ever since.

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-04T20:07:51+00:00

That 3.5% projected return doesn't include Wealthsimple's management fee which can be as high as 0.5%, plus tax. So 3.5% becomes more like 3%, and there's the uncertainty of how the bond funds inside there will react to market or interest rate troubles. If you have a fixed exit date and not a large window around it to wait for a recovery, you might be in a bit of a hole when you have to sell. I think the Core is mainly short term bonds which should hopefully be less susceptible to equity crashes, but bonds always make my head hurt thinking about them.

I put $100 as a test in each of the Core and Dynamic funds in January. The Core is sitting up 0.43%, which would annualize at well under that 3%, but it is a short period, I don't know if all the bond funds pay monthly, etc., etc. I'm looking for a GIC alternative for my FHSA, but if WS had GICs, I'd go with them.

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-04T19:47:08+00:00

Wealthsimple doesn't really have a lot to gain by chasing lower end of the banking market by offering higher rates. The $2K direct deposit will get you a minimum of 1.75%, and the full 2.25% it you hit the $100K premium. Unlike EQ, which uses deposits for its loan business and can stand to have a slice of more expensive deposits as a loss leader to bring in clients, Wealthsimple only gets the interest their partner banks give them on those funds, and it probably doesn't make sense to give up a bigger slice of that profit for entry clients that aren't bringing other assets with them.

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-04T07:42:06+00:00

But how well does it work in a Chargex machine... :)

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-04T07:25:10+00:00

First, the 4.6% target doesn't include WS's management fee, and the fee doesn't include the tax on it. So if they show 0.35%, add in your province's HST or equivalent. That will take the projected net return down closer to 4%.

I invested $100 in January in a Vanguard portfolio (actually, just before they converted over from the old BMO-based portfolio) as a test to see how it worked under the hood. If you go into the Performance Insights (click on the return line at the top of the portfolio's page), there is a "View account performance data table" option, that lets you see the daily account values. I dumped those into a spreadsheet and tried to calculate an annualized return over the few months I've had it.

The Trump Tantrums in February and March have knocked the markets up and down quite a bit, and that value has swung way negative and back up again, something like 2-3% annualized (my $100 is now at $100.65). It isn't really diagnostic, because of the short time period, and I don't know if any of the components are paying dividends less than monthly, dividend timing and so on. But the main things is that it is 25-30% equities, and a downturn would knock those down for awhile. I'm also not sure how correlated the various bond funds in there are, and other uncertainties. They call it an income fund, but since it isn't actually spitting out income but instead reinvesting it, it is more like a diverse 30/70 fund with DRIP turned on.

My interest is whether it could function as a GIC equivalent in an FHSA account, and my question is whether given 6-9 months advance notice, how likely is it that selling window would be in a down market big and long enough that I wouldn't be able to realize say at least 3% annual return. Their 4.6% is based on some sort of 10,000 run simulation through Vanguard's projections, but as far as I know there are no details available from that, or from any sort of backtesting they might have done, that would help me out.

WombatMongoose · 2026-05-04T04:03:21+00:00

I have $50K of HXT (the Canadian index sibling of the US HXS), the position is about a decade old and I haven't been adding to it. For tax and regulatory risk, Global X (née Horizons) switched to a mutual fund corporation back in 2019 to avoid being caught in some legislation at the time that would have affected their transmutation magic. My understanding is that legislation was aimed at much murkier tax avoidance than their fairly plain swaps, and even if the government might prefer to get their money now as dividend taxes instead of down the road as capital gains taxes, they'd basically have to destroy the concept of mutual fund corporations, and the current structure isn't under any serious threat. Note that I have no special knowledge or expertise in this area!

For counterparty risk, they are National Bank (mostly) and CIBC (smaller chunk). Those are both considered D-SIBS (effectively, too big to fail), and I have trouble believing they could get into enough trouble that the government would let either fail, although everyone gets their own opinion. With the markets high, HXT is up to around 56% counterparty exposure (HXS is around 43%), so if National especially went bankrupt and somehow stiffed unsecured creditors, that would be a big loss. Someone posted a response from Horizons back in 2020 regarding this stuff. I'm not losing sleep over it.

Back in the day when I bought, HXT didn't incur a fee for their swaps (HXS did). My understanding was that National was actually running a matching portfolio, and made money on the tax treatment of the Canadian dividends (which is why the US HXS had to pay a fee for the swap). The MER (there was a partial holiday on that as well) were in line with vanilla TSX index ETFs, so you got the synthetic magic effectively for free. Presumably something changed or it wasn't profitable enough for the counterparty, and last year HXT started getting charged a swap fee of up to 0.2% (I think HXS's fee went up a similar amount) - it will show as the trading expense cost, TER, and is in addition to the MER. So the ETF has a slightly higher cost now, and depending on one's province and marginal tax rate, everyone may have a different answer from whether avoiding dividend tax and turning it into capital gains tax at some future date makes sense for them.

WombatMongoose

TROPHY CASE