Alastair Seabrook, RRC, CFP - IG Wealth Management

11/28/2025

Most “Financial Advice” Online Is a Red Flag.

Anytime someone pushes a specific financial strategy to a mass audience, they’re doing one of four things: being unethical, reckless, uninformed, or non-compliant with Canadian regulatory and professional oversight bodies.

It’s fine to publicly challenge traditional thinking, but when someone claims that Infinite Banking, BRRR real-estate, the Smith Manoeuvre, ForEx/Crypto trading algorithms, or any other niche tactic is universally effective, they’re signaling that they don’t operate under the same standards as licensed professionals.

Here’s what most people don’t realize:

Licensed professionals in Canada (CFP®, CIRO-registered advisors, CPAs, insurance agents) are required to speak in principles, not prescriptions.

We should never push specific tactics to the internet at large—because the wrong person, in the wrong circumstances, can easily cause themselves real financial harm.

Real planning depends on:

• tax brackets, deductions & credits
• investment types & income characteristics
• account types (RRSP/RRIF, TFSA, corp, non-reg)
• pensions, CPP/OAS, and clawbacks
• risk capacity & behavioural tendencies
• insurance needs & estate structures
• corporate ownership and inter-corporate tax rules

This is why people who are licensed sound careful…

…and why people who aren’t licensed sound bold, simplistic, and dangerously confident.

A simple rule of thumb:

Anyone promoting a one-size-fits-all financial strategy online is selling you something—usually risk disguised as certainty.
Good advice is personal. Bad advice is universal.

11/14/2025

Income Smoothing: The Modern Way to Reduce Taxes

For years, the standard playbook was:

Max out your RRSP.
Defer taxes as long as possible.

That approach isn’t wrong—but it’s incomplete.

Tax rules, income sources, and retirement realities have changed. Today, smart planning means balancing taxes across your lifetime, not just pushing them into the future. If you defer everything, you risk creating an even bigger tax problem later that costs you more.

Therefore, sometimes we actually WANT more taxable income.
... What is income smoothing?

It’s the science (and a bit of art) of mapping your future lifestyle, major expenses, and financial goals, then spreading income and withdrawals across time to minimize tax spikes. It’s about balancing today’s tax bill with tomorrow’s—and even your estate’s.

A skilled advisor can project future tax returns, factor in credits, deductions, CPP/OAS timing, portfolio dispositions, and business exits. Then, calculate the ideal amount of tax to pay now to save more later.

Canada’s tax code offers powerful tools for this:

-Capital Gains Reserve
-Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption
-Prescribed Rate Loans
-Charitable Donations of Securities
-Capital Dividend Account
-Loss carryforwards/carrybacks
-RRSP contributions
-Timing CPP, OAS, and RRIF/LIF conversion

…and more.

There’s even more tax to save by planning credits carefully—pension amount, age amount, disability tax credit, caregiver amount, medical expenses, and others.

Every week I see families leaving thousands on the table because unused credits simply go to waste.

Bottom line: Income smoothing isn’t about paying less tax today—it’s about paying less tax overall.

11/13/2025

Investing inside your corporation can be an excellent strategy — if it’s done with intention.

Many business owners are wisely putting their retained earnings to work instead of letting cash sit idle.

It’s a smart move that can create long-term value and diversification — but it’s not without pitfalls.

When your corporation earns passive investment income (from interest, dividends, or capital gains), it can trigger the Small Business Deduction (SBD) grind — gradually eroding your small business tax rate once passive income exceeds $50,000 in a year.

And this rule applies across all associated corporations, so spreading investments between companies or shifting to a HoldCo doesn’t eliminate the issue.

⚙️ So how do we thoughtfully invest in the corporation?

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Each strategy depends on your risk tolerance, liquidity needs, and time horizon.

That said, a few key considerations include:

• Consider Return-of-Capital (ROC) investments to help manage taxable income.
• Monitor and rebalance intentionally, keeping expected dividends and interest in check relative to the $50K threshold.
• Explore growth-oriented holdings that defer tax and produce smaller distributions.
• If future growth could push you past the passive income limit, you may wish to explore corporate-owned insurance strategies that create tax-deferred growth and protect access to the small business rate.

💡 The takeaway

Investing within your corporation can be powerful — but it requires planning and precision.

The right mix depends on your goals, cash flow needs, and risk profile, and should be built in collaboration with your accountant and financial planner.

When done correctly, you can grow your investments, preserve tax efficiency, and protect one of the most valuable business incentives available in Canada.

11/12/2025

Passive investing is brilliant... until everyone does it.

When I completed my ETF proficiency course years ago, one section stood out — it warned about the potential for a passive investing bubble.

Index investing began in the 1970s as a low-cost experiment in diversification. At the time, only a small fraction of investors used index funds.

Fast-forward to today: passive strategies have exploded.

In Canada, they’ve grown from a sliver of the market to roughly one-fifth of retail fund assets, and in the U.S. they now make up over half of all fund assets.

The more assets that pile into passive, the more we risk flows driving prices instead of fundamentals — especially in cap-weighted indexes, where a handful of mega-cap tech stocks dominate performance.

Every dollar that flows into an index fund automatically buys more of those same names, regardless of valuation.

That’s not intelligent diversification — it’s momentum disguised as balance.

Passive flows don’t ask questions. They don’t analyze balance sheets, measure risk, or recognize bubbles forming. They just buy.

That’s why I believe in a blended approach:

✅ Index investing for efficiency and cost control.
✅ Active management for research-driven allocation, trend awareness, and human oversight when markets behave irrationally.

Human oversight matters — especially when algorithms are all marching in the same direction.

Passive investing works... until everyone’s doing the same “safe” thing at once.

11/11/2025

07/30/2025

If you’re aged 40+ with over $500,000 in investible assets, there are retirement income opportunities that I can help you explore. Visithttps://www.ig.ca/en/advisor/alastair_seabrook and download this guide today.

07/23/2025

Investors with over $500,000 often miss opportunities to minimize their taxes or optimize their retirement income strategy. Don’t wait until you have $1 million to get personalized advice. I can provide a fresh set of eyes for your financial plan right now and uncover the opportunities you’re missing out on.

07/22/2025

I can help you look at the tax impact of your decisions for opportunities to keep more of what you earn. Get tax planning clarity by requesting a meeting today https://ow.ly/Ta7k50Waenj

07/16/2025

TFSA? RRSP? Pay down your mortgage?
Stop guessing at your next financial move. I’ll take the time to help you make sense of your options. Book a meeting with me using https://ow.ly/XMWg50WacGC

07/15/2025

It might be better for you to plan NOT to get a tax refund next year. I can work with you to help you keep more of what you earn. Book a meeting with me to get some tax planning clarity using https://ow.ly/qjiS50Waeis