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Thank you for joining us today. I have to start with a quick disclaimer, and then we will get into our discussion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. Information relating to investment approaches or individual investments should not be construed as advice or endorsement. Listeners should seek professional advice for their situation. This podcast is sponsored in part by McKenzie Investments. Now, on to the presentation.

Once again, thank you very much for joining us at SM Financial Group. One of the things that we endeavor to do is provide information that our clients are seeking. One of the items that we talk about regularly in our meetings is estate planning, and I think that understanding the role of an executor is key to that, whether you are choosing an executor for your own estate or whether you are an executor for someone else. So, I'm really pleased today to have Alyssa Maita join us. She is a tax and estate planning specialist, and I'm going to introduce her. Alyssa, could you tell us a bit about yourself?

Hi Graham, thank you so much for having me today. My name is Alyssa Maita. I'm the Director of Tax and Estate for Mackenzie Investments for Western Canada, so I cover BC, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. I've been with Mackenzie for just over a year now. Prior to that, I was in a similar role at a national trust company, and before that, I was in private practice for a number of years as an estate planning and probate lawyer. I absolutely love talking about estate planning, so thank you so much for having me here.

When I started my career, it was in estate litigation, so I've seen a number of reasons why estates end up in litigation. A big part of that is not choosing the appropriate executor, not choosing the person you would like to speak for you once you've passed away. I think we need to spend a lot more time talking about who an individual is appointing. I know when I switch to the solicitor side and I would have meetings with clients on who they would like to appoint as executor, it's often a quick discussion, right? We're asking who do you fully trust, who is financially savvy, but we don't think about the other things like who has the time to act. A lot of the tasks with simple estate administration involve a lot of patience and a lot of time. You might think you're choosing the appropriate person because they might have a business, for example, but that might not be the appropriate choice. I'm sure we'll do a deep dive into the tasks that are involved with the estate administration process and who you should be appointing, but it's definitely a discussion that needs to happen.

That sounds good, so let's dive right into it. What exactly is an executor? An executor is a person, or it could be multiple individuals, and in some cases, it's an entity like a trust company, that's appointed to carry out the terms of the will. It's important to keep in mind that an executor has no rights during the will maker's lifetime. We know about Powers of Attorney, which act when an individual is alive but typically incapable. The executor steps into play once the individual has passed away and fulfills any distribution in accordance with the terms of the will.

You often see the term executor and trustee. If an individual doesn't appoint a specific trustee for testamentary trusts set out in the will, then it's often the executor who will step up and take that role. It's important to keep in mind that an executor has no responsibility for assets that bypass the estate. Wherever you have a beneficiary designation on your registered plans or life insurance, those assets fall outside of the estate, so the executor wouldn't have any responsibility for those assets. In another situation where we have joint tenants with the right of survivorship, that asset is also going to bypass the estate and fall to the survivor, so the executor would have no responsibility for that either.

I often get asked how many executors should be appointed. Should I appoint one person, two people, or all three of my kids? It really depends on the situation. Remember, whenever you're appointing multiple executors, they're acting jointly and must act unanimously. There can be benefits to that, like checking and balance and having each other's support.

So, there are benefits, but there are also disadvantages. All decisions must be made together, so if they can't agree, we're essentially holding up the estate. I've seen a lot of clients who have three kids put in a majority rules provision, so if two of the three agree, then that's the decision that goes. That can work, but in a lot of cases, if two of the three siblings get along really well, they could potentially bully the third one. So, you must be careful and really consider who you're appointing. Often, it's best to just appoint one person but then have alternate names in case that person is unable or unwilling to act. I would say at least have two backups named, just in case the person is sick, at a point in their life where they're unable to take on that responsibility, or if they predecease you. If they simply don't want to act for whatever reason, it will be really important to have backups named.

Oftentimes, we also include trusts in the will, and a lot of those trusts might be lifetime trusts. So, if we set up a fully discretionary trust for an individual with a disability and that trust is to last the duration of their life, that's a long responsibility for a trustee to act. If we haven't named a specific trustee, we know that responsibility will fall to the executor. So, you really want to think about who you're appointing.

Some clients will choose to appoint a lawyer or an accountant. The benefit of this is that they are well-versed in your affairs, so it can be a good choice. However, if that lawyer or accountant is the same age as you, it might not be a good choice because they could predecease you or get sick. You really want to be careful with that. If you appoint a younger lawyer or younger accountant, and they have a really busy practice, your estate might get put on the back burner. So, there are a lot of options here, but you really want to think about who you're appointing.

A trust company can be a great option. Trust companies have dedicated trust officers who are often lawyers, and this is their whole task—estate administration. They can do a really good job of administering the estate, and you can work with them. They require clauses to be put into the will, but the client can say, "I want my assets to stay with my adviser. Can we include language in the will to provide for that?" And you're able to do that. You're just working with a trust company and the lawyer to craft that language. So, there are really good options out there; you just need to think about what the best fit for your situation is.

I've seen a lot of clients do a joint appointment where they'll appoint one child jointly with the trust company. With that, the trust company is going to take on all of the work, handling the difficult part of the administration. However, because it's a joint appointment with a child, that child has to agree to all decisions that are made. This can be a really good working relationship.

Yeah, that's fantastic. If anyone has questions about the trust services offered by National Trust, I'd be happy to make the introduction.

Now, Alyssa, what are some of the key duties of an executor or trustee?

Yeah, so an executor typically has 25 to 30 tasks in a simple estate administration, so there's a lot involved. One of the first tasks is to arrange the service and disposition of the deceased and obtain a death certificate. The executor is going to have to obtain multiple copies of the death certificate because they have to provide it to a number of parties, such as financial institutions, lawyers, and accountants. They will need to get multiple copies of those, and typically, your lawyer can notarize and make additional copies if necessary.

As I mentioned, one of the first tasks is the disposition of the body, and that's often the most difficult task. If you think about it, if you pass away and your children are appointed as executors, they now have to plan for your funeral, and they may have no idea what you would have wanted. It can be really hard on them, so I think it's important to spend time thinking about this and talking about it. You have a few options. You can let your executor know exactly what your wishes are through a verbal conversation.

A lot of clients don't feel comfortable going that route. You are able to include language in the will, but remember, a lawyer is not going to put in paragraphs of what you would have wanted. They can put in a simple line or two saying that you wish to be buried or cremated, or that you want a celebration of life. You can also do what's called a letter of wishes, where you go into detail about what your wishes are and include it with a copy of your will. Pre-planned funerals are becoming more and more popular, and it really takes the burden off of the executor because everything is already arranged. So, that's something you might want to think about.

A lot of clients will put in what their wishes are in that letter and make sure that their kids have a copy of it or know where they can find that information. So, it's something to think about. The next thing is, of course, locating the original will. You would think that this is going to be a simple task, but it's not always the case. You want to let your kids know who drafted your will and where you're storing the original. If they can't find the original will, we really can't do much. I'm sure we'll talk more about the probate process, but essentially, to get that authority from the court, you need to submit the original will. So, it's really important that your kids know where it's being located, whether it's at the lawyer's office, in a fireproof safe in your home, or in your safety deposit box. Make them aware that they should have all of your information, such as your personal information, date of birth, and the information of all the beneficiaries, including where they can be located. Updating addresses and keeping an inventory of that information is crucial. I think one of the best things an executor can do is establish a relationship with the financial advisor. That way, if anything were to happen to the client, the kids can go to the advisor and start the probate process. They can get a lot of information regarding the client's assets directly from the advisor, which is huge.

As I mentioned, we have an executor checklist. I would suggest having a meeting between the advisor and the executor to go through that checklist together. Make sure that your executor is willing and able to act and is aware of what's involved in the estate administration process.

If you've been divorced or separated, it's really important that your executor can retrieve a copy of that separation agreement and any income tax returns. If you're in ongoing litigation, such as a car accident, and there's an ongoing civil case, your executor will need to continue with that case after your passing to maximize your estate value. They will need access to that paperwork, so it's really important to keep your executor informed.

So, that's really important. I know a lot of clients will have those documents drawn up and then never make any mention of it to their executor or their kids. That's probably the worst thing you can do. We can't even apply for probate or do any estate administration without having that original will. So, it's really important that you're keeping your kids up to date on what you're doing. You don't need to show them the contents of the will, but you do need to let them know where it's being stored.

Another thing that I think is really important is keeping an asset inventory. With the probate process, you're going to have to include the estate value in the application. If executors or children have no idea what their parents owned, it can be really difficult. A lot of times, the lawyer is sitting and writing to every financial institution to determine if the deceased had assets with them, and this really just prolongs and delays the estate administration process. So, I think keeping an asset inventory is crucial. You don't have to put account numbers or balances, but basically saying these are the financial institutions where I'm holding assets. If you sell an asset, just update that inventory and make it a part of your plan every year to update it.

Digital assets are becoming more and more popular and have value. Keeping a record of digital assets like loyalty points, crypto, websites, blogs, and photos is important. Your executor needs to be able to access them. Crypto that you can't access is essentially crypto that you don't have, so it's really important to have recordkeeping of how those assets can be accessed.

Safeguarding assets is another big step that an executor has to take. This includes storing and insuring any valuable items, changing passwords, redirecting mail, closing any necessary accounts, and arranging for interim payments until they have full authority to act and liquidate those assets.

Right. So, storing and insuring any valuable items, including expensive artwork, changing any passwords, redirecting mail, and closing any necessary accounts are essential tasks. Additionally, arranging for interim payments until they have full authority to act and liquidate those assets is important.

I get a lot of questions about the timeline. How long does the executor have? You might have heard the term "executor's year," meaning in case law, an executor has basically a year to do what they need to do before the beneficiaries can start requesting updates. Many clients are under the impression that within a year, the estate will be fully administered, and assets distributed, but that's not always the case. In many jurisdictions where the courts are backed up, it can take a long time to even obtain probate. Typically, you're looking at 18 to 24 months for a simple estate administration.

Having said that, after a year, the beneficiaries can start asking for more information and see why things are held up or taking longer. You have an obligation and a fiduciary duty to provide them with that information. Setting expectations for the timeline is crucial. We have a number of aging clients, and we're always processing estates every year. Keeping in mind the realistic timeline is essential for everyone.

You want to set that timeline straight from the beginning, keeping them informed but realistic that it could take a while, and explaining the reasons why. Lastly, executors also need to ensure they're maintaining a record of every financial transaction that takes place within the estate. This is very important.

They must pay off all the deceased's debts and estate debts, advertise for creditors, allow them a certain amount of time to come forward, and file any estate tax returns. If there's a US component, ensure compliance with those regulations. They need to obtain a clearance certificate from the CRA, which confirms all debts and liabilities have been paid, allowing them to distribute the estate.

At that point, residuary beneficiaries in the estate are expected to receive a passing of accounts, showing every financial transaction that has taken place. They can review it and get independent legal advice.

If they're comfortable with it, they essentially sign off and then at that point, they'll sign a receipt and release and they'll get whatever they're entitled to from the estate. So, that's the high level what an executor's responsibilities are. Fantastic. Now, a term we hear a lot about when we're talking about estates is probate. Can you tell us exactly what it is and how that process works? Yeah, absolutely. So, you've heard me mention probate a few times, but it's essentially the process where the courts are going to review the will, ensure that it's valid, and then they're going to grant the executor with a certificate which allows the executor to be able to act. Right. So most financial institutions are going to require probate, and I'll tell you why. Let's say I've passed away and I've appointed my sister as the executor. She takes the will to the bank and says, here's my sister's will, here's her death certificate. I need all the money so that I can distribute it. The bank's going to say, well, we don't know if this will be valid and we don't know if you are who you say you are. So, that's why probate exists. It's so that the court can provide the executor with paperwork so that these financial institutions and lawyers are able to transfer property without an issue, without having to worry about the liability. The problem with the probate process is that the courts levy a fee, so in each province, this is going to look different. Here in Alberta, we are very lucky it's a flat fee of $525. When I was in private practice, I was in Ontario. The fees there are 1.5%, so a lot of times when we're doing planning, we're trying to minimize that fee. But here in Alberta, you know, we're lucky we don't have to worry about it. As far as that probate application goes, it's a lawyer's responsibility to do that so the executor isn't expected to take on that application process. The expectation is that they retain a lawyer, and the lawyer completes that application. Sometimes an executor will choose to take it on themselves to help save the estate some costs. I've seen a lot of issues with that, right. Any little mistake you make, the courts are often going to reject the application, so you're wasting a lot of time if you're not having a lawyer complete that paperwork.

The forms are not straightforward to fill out, so like I said, a minor mistake can cause that application to be sent back and now you're just delaying the estate administration. So, I would say, hire a lawyer and get that done as soon as possible. Fantastic. So once all the debts are paid, once the taxes are paid to CRA, what's the next step? Yeah, so once the debts are paid, all taxes have been paid, then you basically apply to CRA to get what's called the clearance certificate. Once you have that clearance certificate, you're ready to distribute the estate. Specific gifts and cash legacies are paid out first, and then you'll have this residue clause where it's typically divided in percentages, and you're able to give that money to the beneficiaries. Like I said, you will want the beneficiaries to sign a release form, and that release form says they've reviewed the estate accounting, they're okay with everything and now they're releasing the executor from any liability. Once they've signed that form, then you can go ahead and distribute those assets to the beneficiaries.

It is important though that the executor keeps a record of their expenses as well, right? So, mileage, if they've paid costs for photocopying, postage, things like that, you want to keep detailed records of all of that so that you're able to get reimbursed. That sounds good. Now, the executor and trustees do a lot of work. What is their compensation? Do they get paid? What are the rules around that? Yeah, for sure. So, executors are entitled to receive reimbursement for any appropriate expenses that they've had, and they use the estate funds to reimburse themselves. They are also entitled to compensation for the time and effort during their estate administration. A client can specify that compensation amount in their will. Some clients will choose to put a flat fee; some clients will choose to put a percentage in their will. As far as the executor's compensation, I would always advise that the flat fee is a little bit risky, right? Because you don't know what your estate size is going to be at the end of the day. If you put a really small flat fee, the executor might choose not to act; they might not think it's worth their time. If you put a high flat fee, and then your estate ends up shrinking just because you had a lot of costs during end-of-life care and things like that, you could be leaving them a really large amount. So, percentage is usually safer. I would say though that most wills are silent on the executor's compensation, and then it's sort of the provincial rules that kick in to determine how much the executor is able to take. That range is typically 2 to 5%. So, no executor should be getting more than 5% of the gross estate size. As far as between that 2 to 5%, how do we determine the appropriate percentage? It's really going to depend on a number of factors, right? So, what is the size of the estate? What was the complexity of the work involved? How much skill was required to administer the estate? How much time was spent administering the estate? I'll give you an example. If we had a simple situation where we have investments and a house that just had to be sold, it would be really hard to justify that 5%. But if you have, let's say, 30 beneficiaries and they're all over the world and there was business involved, you're probably going to look at being entitled to a higher percentage on that scale. So it's just going to depend.

Not all executors take compensation. So even if you provide for that in your will, you know, if you're appointing a child, they might say, "You know, I don't want to take the compensation. I'm happy to do it." The other thing is, it's taxable income to the executor, so if they take compensation, it's taxable income to them. So, it might not be worth it, and they might just choose not to take it. Right. Sounds good. So, what do you think people should consider when they're choosing their executor? Yeah, so I think we've mentioned the importance of choosing the right executor, but you're looking at several things, right? So, someone with ample time. A lot of times when I was in private practice, I would have a client say, "I have a son and he's running a really great business, he's very financially savvy, super successful," and then I would say, "Does he have a family?" And it turns out that, you know, they have three kids and he's really busy. That might not be the person to appoint, right? Although he's financially savvy and he might be well-versed in your financial affairs, if he doesn't have time to act, it's going to be difficult. So, you want to do that. Someone who's willing to act. A lot of times clients won't make mention to their kids that they've appointed them. That's the worst thing you can do. You want to check with your executor and make sure that they're going to be agreeable to act. Someone who's accessible, right? So typically, we say you should be appointing an executor who is residing in the same province as you just to make things easier. Someone who has patience, right? So oftentimes, you're sitting on the phone with CRA for two hours, and it can get really tiring and frustrating. So, you want to appoint someone who's going to be willing to do that and someone who's patient. Of course, someone who has integrity, right? They're acting on your behalf once you've passed away, so you want them to act the same way that you would. Someone who's objective. You might have beneficiaries that disagree, so you need to appoint someone who is not going to side with one of the beneficiaries. Someone who has good judgment, and then of course being financially savvy is important as well. And someone who's well-versed in your affairs is going to be important.

The one thing that I want you to keep in mind too is you want to be careful about appointing a non-resident executor. So, you don't want to be appointing someone in the US because the CRA could deem that your estate might be considered a US estate and there could be tax implications there. So, you should be appointing someone who's in Canada. If you have a child that's sort of in and out of the country, right? So maybe they're working in the US, but there's a good chance that they're going to come back, maybe you appoint them, but then ensure that you have backups appointed in case they are non-residents. So, for the most part, I would say spouses appoint each other first, and then after that, it really depends. If your kids are able and willing to act, and it's a good choice, then you would appoint your kids typically. But have a conversation with them. If they're not agreeable to do it, or they don't want to do it, look at other options like a trust company. Perfect. So, let's wrap it up here. So, we've covered the role of the executor, duties, responsibilities, how to choose the right person, and use us as a resource. We've got some great checklists. We're impartial, we're not the beneficiary, and we'd be happy to walk you through, just be a sounding board when you're going through this process. So, thanks for joining us. Alyssa, thank you so much for having me. And just a quick note here, if you're going to take anything out of this podcast, a couple of things: if you have your estate planning done, go back, review it, see who you've appointed as executor, decide if it's the right choice, and if you haven't had a conversation with the person you've appointed, I think it's a good time to ask them. And then the second thing is introducing your executor to [Graham]. I think that's a good option. They're able to get to know each other and then your executor knows that they have support in case anything happens to you. That's fantastic. So as our clients know, reviewing the estate and the will—or whether they have a will—is one of the items on our annual review agenda. So, it's not just sitting there for us to check; it's something that I think everyone should really put some serious thought into. And again, we're happy to help you out in any way we can. So once again, thank you very much, Alyssa, and if anyone has questions, feel free to reach out to us. Have a great day. Thank you.

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Thank you for joining us today. I'm going to talk to you about the investment management process that we use at SM Financial National Bank Financial. This is one of the services that we provide to our clients: Investment Management. We are also very involved in financial planning, estate planning, retirement, and education planning as well. But today, we're going to talk about our disciplined investment management process. So once a quarter, we get a deep dive and analysis done on the model portfolios that we use. As an outcome of that process, we look at two factors and there are two decisions that have to be made by the investment committee. The first one is the overall asset allocation: what is the proportion of the portfolio going into cash, bonds, and stocks, as well as Canadian, US, International, etc. And then the second part of that process is to decide who will be managing the different asset classes. So today, we've got Franklin Templeton and their ClearBridge group who manage the Canadian equity portion of the portfolios. They're going to be discussing the economy, the stock market, and their investment process specifically. So I'd like to introduce Dave Wall. He's going to be our guest today. And the first question I have is: where are the markets and the economy at, what brought us here, and then what is your outlook going forward?

Hi Graeme, pleasure to be here with you. And there we go, my screen is live for you. You got it? Good. Pleasure to be here. Again, I look forward to the next five or ten minutes. We're going to talk about Canadian equities and kind of the journey that we've been on. By the way, great initiative by you and your team, and really a great idea to keep your clients up to speed. I really like it and well done. If we're going to start from a position of talking about the markets, I think it's important to start from a macro perspective and really talk briefly about inflation, interest rates, and how that has affected markets in the last five years and investing overall. And then maybe drill down to Canada versus US markets. So since COVID, say the last four or five years, there's been a real intense market focus on equities. A large stimulus helped to drive the markets and the growth of the markets, which was followed by an unprecedented rise in interest rates to really slow the economy down and in effect direct the markets again. It has really been an environment of central banks controlling things. We think now there's really some normalcy returning to the markets and fine-tuning has begun. We're starting to get rate cuts when there is a decent economic environment and a good labor market as well, maybe more so in the US than Canada perhaps, but overall a pretty good labor market. A key takeaway to think of the market over the last few years is that a rising tide floats all boats. Well, we believe the tide has turned, no pun intended Graeme, although it kind of does fit my narrative, and it will be increasingly a stock picker's market and active managers will have an opportunity to perform. Still lots of uncertainties to consider in the market: tariffs in the US after the election, specifically wars in conflict, China, their underperforming economy and market, the effects of AI and how that's going to transcend the industry over the next few years, and more specifically in Canada for us, mortgage rate resets and really the challenge that that provides for the consumer. We think that the market is frothy and priced probably to perfection. There's still that fear of missing out attitude that is seeking high-flying growth names like the MAG 7 in the US. Rate cuts in Canada will continue and we seem to be heading probably to a little bit slower economy as of right now. But with that all in mind, we think that we're well positioned for that and we'll speak to that a little bit later on. Now maybe let's turn to the markets briefly. The first slide is an interesting slide that illustrates how Canadian markets have outperformed US markets over the last 25 years.

Yeah, so to interrupt, but this is really interesting how in more recent history the US has been outperforming Canada and I think that this is a good slide just to make the point about the opportunities that are here at the right time.

Absolutely, and most people do view the last 10 years especially as the US always outperforms Canada. That's not the case and even for many really investing experts, Graeme, they forget that Canada has great long-term performance if you take a different time period than the most recent bias. The first 10 years of the millennium, if you look from 2000 on, was a large outperformance for Canada. The US had a good run up in the 90s and then the tech bubble had the US market lag. And even if you look at this and you can see the chart, it was negative up till eight or nine years into the 2000s. Now it's done a great job to catch up as the markets do come and go, but the Canadian market outperformed in the third quarter of this year for the first time in seven quarters. And that's why it's important for investment professionals like you. They're so key in providing advice and a long-term perspective as the performance and leadership and performance does ebb and flow. There's another great debate that I'm sure that you're always looking at, Graeme, you and the team, and especially for investors, it's the debate over growth versus value. And this slide again shows 25 years of performance and the first 20 years really look very similar. Growth and value were kind of neck and neck as we went forward. Then we enter the pandemic in a large stimulus environment where growth has outperformed. The question to ask is how much of that was driven by fundamentals, and I know you guys think about this all the time, and how much of this was really just a huge stimulus and a large influx of cash to economies. Regardless of the answer there, we think there's still lots of froth in the market. Now I know that Graeme's done his due diligence on your behalf and has trusted us with a portion of your Canadian investments. Why has he done that and what can you expect going forward? I'm going to try to give some insight on that in the next couple of slides.

And I'll just interrupt for a quick minute here. The way I think a good analogy to look at part of the role of a portfolio manager, which is the role I'm licensed as a portfolio manager, I head our investment committee and make these decisions, it's almost like managing a hockey team where we need a defenseman, we need a goalie, we need some forwards, and we need some scorers. And every quarter when we review and analyze the portfolios, we're trying to decide if our goalie is doing their job or do they need to be replaced, are the defensemen doing their job or do they need to be replaced. So what we're looking at here is analyzing our Canadian equity player, which right now we're using Franklin Templeton and the ClearBridge team. I've used them for a number of years, very familiar with them, they've done a fantastic job. So this player is one that we keep our eyes on, but they're doing a great job. And I'm going to turn it back over and you can let us know about your process and then the results of that process.

Sure, yep, thanks Graeme. Yep, so this slide really is trying to illustrate our four focuses underlying our investments and how we build our portfolio. So I'll go quickly over this, there's some points in here, but the four things that I really want you to think about is we want to provide an absolute return for investors of high single to low double-digit returns again over the long run because there are ebbs and flows. We want to outperform the benchmark or the overall Canadian market by 2% annualized over the long period and we've managed to do that. It's actually been almost 2.5% annualized outperformance. We want to take less risk than the market and we want to protect on the downside and maintain that little bit more defensive stance overall in the market. So the goal for us is better risk-adjusted returns overall and this should help you understand how we'll perform in different markets. And I'll give you an example, when the market is high-flying, we're going to do our best to keep up with the Joneses. As an example, over one period the market returned around 26% up until now and we returned 24%. Proud of the number, but a little bit of underperformance. But in a year like 2022 when the market was down 5%, this Canadian strategy was up 3%. And that's exactly what we're trying to achieve because you realize that if you lose 50% of an investment in one year, you have to make up 100% the next year to break even. So we want to continue to protect on the downside and that's one of the characteristics that I look for in our portfolio managers, especially in the portfolios for our retired clients. I believe that we're paid and people are happier saving the downside than necessarily getting that last half a percent on the upside. So it's kind of long-term steadier growth.

Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, great, and that does fit our investment philosophy as well. So overall, just on this slide, and I'll illustrate just a few points for you guys, overall our positioning is defensive but not conservative. We are willing to take on risk when appropriate and find the best opportunities for you and Graeme's team. This slide shows our positioning and you can see we are overweight in the defensive sectors. So take utilities for example. If you rewind a year ago when interest rates were a little bit higher and possibly at their peak, utilities were underperforming and we were able to add with rates rolling over and the demand for electricity increasing, and AI as well with the demand there, we like our position. Energy is an example of us adding where opportunities arise. We like the Western Basin for oil with the addition of the Trans Mountain pipeline and on the gas side, LNG Canada coming on board. We think that's going to help names in western Canada and the Alberta Basin. It's a good backdrop for names like Pembina, Enbridge, etc. You can also see just as an aside, we've lessened our weight to consumer staples and only because we've been able to do that on their strength. Example names like Loblaw, etc. have performed well and we continue to trim those names to find other opportunities. Just a real quick example, financials continue to be our largest overweight although we've added and subtracted to individual banks where warranted. I think that from that perspective, just so you know, our cash, we try to be invested in cash all the time but we do use some cash that's available to make sure that we can add to positions when we see the opportunities. This is my favorite slide, Graeme, and you know we talk about why it's compelling for us to be part of your mandate and really why you think it's probably important for us to be part of your client's mandates. And this is really the slide. We've only had five managers on the fund in 40 plus years of existence and that means you can count on the continuation of the same process that has led to this kind of performance. The top slide, and I'll divide this slide into two different quick discussions, the top portion shows the outperformance of our mandate which is in blue over the S&P TSX which is in red over the 40 plus years that we've been in existence. A considerable outperformance. The bottom portion illustrates a couple of things. What this is showing is rolling five-year periods by month and really that equates to I think 440 iterations over the long period of time that we've been in existence. We've been able to outperform the benchmark in over 80% of those time frames and more importantly, we've only had one negative period and that is during the global financial crisis where the market has had 12 negative periods. So from my perspective, that's a very important concept for your clients to understand that over the long period of time, the risk-reward and the performance profile that you get has a smoother ride but in the long period of time, pretty good outperformance. I just want to say to you that if this isn't, and you guys use it as your primary fund, I think it shows predictable returns and protection on the downside. It's a really profitable ride and a smooth one, Graeme. And that's, I'll turn it back over to you if there's anything else you want to chat about.

Well, thank you very much, Dave. That's fantastic. And just to bring it to a close, the team at SM Financial Group are here to help. If you ever have any questions, reach out. I'm really happy with the team we've assembled. Our investment management process is very disciplined. We have that quarterly deep dive and review of the asset allocation of each of the teams we're using to manage the different positions in your portfolio. We've been very happy with Franklin Templeton and the ClearBridge group. It was the name changed from Bisset, so I often might slip in the wrong name once in a while. I've been using them for a while. And so yeah, like I said, not here to make people rich, I'm here to keep them rich or keep whatever level of savings they have there and grow it over time to help them achieve their goals. So please feel free to reach out to our team at any time. Dave, thank you very much and I hope everyone has a great day.

Thanks, Graeme. Thank you.

National Bank Financial - Wealth Management (NBFWM) is a division of National Bank Financial Inc. (NBF), as well as a trademark owned by National Bank of Canada (NBC) that is used under license by NBF. NBF is a member of the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) and the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF), and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NBC, a public company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: NA).