The file says suitable. It does not say why.
Since the end of 2021, a Canadian registrant must put the client's interest first, know the client, know the product, and consider a reasonable range of alternatives. In December 2025 the regulators went and looked at whether that could be shown.
What is actually being decided.
Since the end of 2021, a Canadian registrant must put the client's interest first, know the client, know the product, and consider a reasonable range of alternatives. In December 2025 the regulators went and looked at whether that could be shown.
What actually goes wrong.
Not a list of villains. A list of places where the record and the relationship come apart, drawn from what the regulators themselves have published.
Suitable, with nothing behind it
Reviewing 105 registered firms, the CSA and CIRO reported that some had little or no documentation, or recorded only that an investment was suitable without showing the basis for that determination.
Never shown to have been weighed
In many cases, registrants could not show evidence that a reasonable range of alternatives was considered at the time of the decision. The rule requires it. The record could not demonstrate it.
Undocumented
Where a client insisted on something the registrant thought unsuitable, many did not document the determination they had performed before proceeding.
No changes
The regulators were explicit: records should show a meaningful reassessment, and generic notes reading no changes are insufficient.
The same four moments, in this decision.
Every industry on this site gets the same four moments, because the relationship is the thing that repeats. Only the decision changes.
Before money moves
The person understands what they are being asked to decide, and that asking why this option rather than another is an expected question with an expected answer.
At the recommendation
The reasoning is captured as it is given, in the conversation where it is given, rather than reconstructed into a form afterwards.
On every review
A reassessment that shows what was actually reconsidered, so the file does not read as two words repeated annually.
If it is ever questioned
The basis is there, dated, alongside what the client said and what they were shown.
Better financial decisions start with better relationships.
The person understands what they are deciding. The firm can show how it was handled. Both of those come out of the same conversation.