Lisa Langley is on a mission. Although she is CEO of Emerge Canada Inc., the sponsor of Emerge ARK ETFs, whose disruptive innovation ETFs are the Canadian sisters of the U.S. based ETFs sub-advised by ARKInvest, Lisa has been devoting considerable time during the last 3 years to the mission of educating Canadian advisors on the pitfalls of using U.S. domiciled ETFs in the portfolios they manage on behalf of their clients, specifically in the cases where there are equivalent Canadian domiciled ETFs they could be using.
You can find more information on her firm’s mission, here at: “Think Canadian ETFs”
We didn’t talk about her firm’s ETFs here.
Instead, to talk about the issue and her next-to-most important mission, Lisa invited Dr. Dean Smith, Ph.D., partner at Cadesky Tax, a Canadian tax expert, who specializes in working with multi-national companies and wealthy expatriate individuals on U.S.-Canada cross-border tax issues, to join us for a deep dive on the various high -value considerations investors need to be aware of when it comes to specifically investing in (equivalent) Canadian-domiciled ETFs vs. U.S.-domiciled ones.
The bottom line is that it is in the financial best interest of Canadian investors, and their advisors (you), to decisively begin using Canadian-domiciled ETFs in all portfolios, going forward. Our conversation in this podcast is all about “Why?”
It’s also important that we recognize here that many investors and advisors currently hold U.S.-domiciled ETF positions that may be difficult to replace or unwind because they have accumulated substantial capital gains, so our talk is not about unwinding those positions, but rather, rethinking the decision to further add to those U.S. domiciled ETFs, vs. finding equivalent Canadian-listed counterparts.
Our objective here is to focus on what to consider for future decisions. Think of it as your resolution for 2022. Positions in U.S.-domiciled ETFs that fulfill an investment objective should only be considered in the event there is no Canadian-listed equivalent ETF, i.e. only if there is no other way.
There are serious fiduciary implications, and considerable long term practitioner liability to consider. The consequences could wind up being very messy, particularly on long-time held U.S. domiciled ETF assets.
Tune in, this is important. Once you know, you won’t be able to look away or think about it any other way.
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