Response to Comments and Proposal

January 31st, 2025

TORONTO, CANADA (January 31, 2025) – The Canadian Investment Fund Standards Committee (CIFSC) continuously monitors and analyses the categorization of funds, the current category definitions and structures, as well as any new and developing trends in the investment funds industry. The purpose of the review is to ensure the logical, consistent categorization of investment funds and to maximize the similarity of investment strategies and risk-return profiles within each category. Categories should have a sufficient number of funds to allow for meaningful comparisons and rankings within the category.

On November 1st, 2024, the committee submitted a proposal to create the following new categories: 1) Equity Other, 2) Health Care Equity, 3) three target date categories – 2040, 2045, 2045+, 4) Canadian Core Bond Plus Fixed Income and 5) Global Core Bond Plus Fixed Income. In addition, the committee proposed changes to 1) High Yield Fixed Income, 2) Multi Sector Fixed Income, 3) Canadian Short Term Fixed Income, 4) Canadian Long Term Fixed Income, 5) Canadian Corporate Fixed Income, 6) Canadian Inflation-Protected Fixed Income, 7) Global Fixed Income and 8) Global Corporate Fixed Income. [see proposal here].

A 60-day public comment period closed December 31, 2024. Appendix A is a summary of the comments received as well as the committee’s responses.

The CIFSC would like to thank industry stakeholders for their valued input to the proposed changes to Asset Class Definitions, Equity Other & Fixed Income Other category proposals, Target Date category proposal and Fixed Income category changes.

Response to comments, final category definitions, and updated flow chart are available here.