The Legal Information Society of Nova Scotia (LISNS) is currently working on a 14 month (January 2020 to March 2021) "Investor Rights and Protection" (IRP) project, funded by The Law Foundation of Ontario (LFO) Access to Justice Fund. The goal of the IRP Project is to help educate, protect and build the confidence of Nova Scotia investors, with a particular emphasis on five identified vulnerable groups. The project work involves creating a comprehensive guide to be housed on the LISNS website as well as promoting and sharing the material with Nova Scotians using online presentations and webinars. The guide will contain LISNS developed content combined with extensive resources gathered from other excellent sources, organized in an easily accessible format.
Investors want to grow their money but investment growth is not guaranteed, so investing involves risk. Investors might make money but they might also lose money. There are different types of investments and different places and ways to buy them. There are also special government plans for investing which can help investors pay less income tax. These plans are very helpful but also make investing more complicated.
Most investors need help with choosing and buying investments. Sometimes people who are trying to sell investments are not even allowed to be selling them and are trying to scam people and take their money. This is illegal and is known as investment fraud.
Many investors use financial advisors at banks or other places to help them buy investments. These people are allowed to sell investments and give advice to investors on which investments to buy. Investors can get help and good advice from financial advisors but they sometimes give not-so-great advice or even take advantage of investors. Government agencies, such as the Nova Scotia Securities Commission, have rules in place for financial advisors to follow to help protect investors. But most people don’t know enough about the rules, their rights as investors or about investing in general to know when they are getting bad advice or being taken advantage of.
The creation of the Investor Rights and Protection Guide and related online presentations are being funded by the Law Foundation of Ontario's Access to Justice Fund. We are very grateful for this support which is allowing LISNS to help educate, protect and build the confidence of Nova Scotia investors.