Financial Planners: directory of firms

Québec has the strongest rule and the longest-standing one. Nobody may use the title of financial planner or purport to offer financial planning services in Québec without the appropriate certificate issued by the Autorité des marchés financiers, and obtaining it requires the financial planning diploma issued by the Institute of Financial Planning. The Autorité's register of firms and individuals authorized to practise shows whether the person is entitled to carry on the activity in question.

Ontario regulates the title through the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario's title protection framework. The transition period for the Financial Planner title concluded on March 28, 2026; those who were not eligible for the transition period have needed an approved credential from a FSRA-approved credentialing body, and the transition only ever applied to people already using the title on or before January 1, 2020. FSRA's Check Credentials tool lets a consumer confirm the credential, whether the holder is in good standing and whether there is a disciplinary history.

New Brunswick's Financial Advisors and Financial Planners Title Protection Act came into force on January 1, 2026, with the Financial and Consumer Services Commission approving the credentialing bodies and credentials and transition periods of four years for the planner title and two years for the advisor title. Participation is voluntary in that a professional may choose not to use a protected title at all. Other provinces have looked at similar frameworks at different speeds, so treat the title as meaningful only where the province has made it so, and use the registers in every case.

A planner's output is a plan; an advisor's output is usually advice on specific holdings or products and the transactions that follow. The same person often does both, wearing a credential for the first and a securities or insurance registration for the second, which is exactly why the two checks are separate. Planning advice about securities is still advice about securities: the registration requirement follows the activity, not the job title.

Two other professions own pieces of the plan outright. Filings, elections and the actual tax return belong to an accountant, and the drafting of wills, powers of attorney and trusts belongs to a lawyer or, in Québec, a notary. A good plan says clearly which recommendations need one of those professionals and does not pretend to substitute for either. Ask a prospective planner how they work alongside your accountant and lawyer, and what they will send them.

A plan is a set of assumptions with dates attached, and assumptions expire. The events that usually justify revisiting one are changes in the household rather than movements in markets: a new job or the loss of one, a birth, a separation, a death, a move between provinces or countries, a property purchase or sale, an inheritance, the start of a business or the sale of it. Any of these can invalidate several sections of a plan at once.

Agree at the outset how often the plan is reviewed and what a review includes, since 'ongoing service' means different things at different firms. Ask, too, what happens to the plan if your planner leaves or retires: who holds it, who would take the file, and in what form you can keep your own copy. A plan you cannot get a copy of is not really yours.

Financial planning is directory-only on LokalMatch. Firms publish their own description of what they do and you contact them directly: we don't sell requests for this service, and no enquiry is passed on or converted into a referral. No firm can pay to be presented as more suitable, and there is no ranking behind the order you see.

We do not assess plans or planners, and we do not give financial advice. The verification that matters is public and free: the Québec register, the Ontario credential check, the New Brunswick framework and, where securities advice is in play, the national registration search maintained by the securities commissions.