Many Canadians are not good at managing money matters, so the government has launched a new initiative to help them. It’s called the National Strategy for Financial Literacy-Count me in and is accessible to Canadians via the internet.
Financial literacy is defined as having the knowledge, skills and confidence to make responsible financial decisions. How is Canadians level of financial literacy?
Financial literacy levels ‘pretty low’
“It’s pretty low,” says Ellen Roseman, a personal finance columnist at the Toronto Star and instructor at the University of Toronto. “We’ve seen a lot of studies that indicate that people don’t have a good ability to track their own finances.
“They don’t understand concepts like compound interest, especially when it comes to debt. They are often confused when it comes to things like interest rates and how they affect the price of bonds if they’re investing in bonds. So there’s a lot of knowledge that evades them.”
ListenFew independent sources of information
There is very little teaching of finances in schools and, for adults, there are few independent sources of information. Too often, Canadians rely on people who have a vested interest because they are selling a product. For example, when buying a house they may get advice from banks, brokers, lawyers or real estate agents.
“There’s nobody really out there who’s giving you objective, independent financial information. It just doesn’t pay them to do that,” says Roseman.
Resources come from diverse sources
After the financial crisis in 2008, the Canadian government decided Canadians needed help to learn how to protect themselves from such events and how to better manage their money. It created a task force to figure out how to do that and now has come up with a strategy to centralize online resources provided by governments, financial companies, non-profits and educators.
Canadians invited to join in
The stated goal is to help Canadians manage money and debt wisely, to plan and save for the future, to prevent and protect against fraud and financial abuse.
Some resources have already been posted and more will be in future. Individuals and organizations have been invited to join an ongoing conversation about strategy and developments at #countMeInCA.
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