Canadian Fixed-Income Forum

The Canadian Fixed-Income Forum (CFIF) is a group set up by the Bank of Canada to facilitate the sharing of information between market participants and the Bank on the Canadian fixed-income market. You can find out what we do and how we're organized, as well as our members and related market notices. We also provide a list of our meetings.

What We Do

The Canadian Fixed-Income Forum (Forum) is a senior level industry-wide committee established by the Bank of Canada to discuss developments in fixed-income market structure and functioning, market practices, and related policy issues. The goals of the Forum are to:

• enhance the efficiency and resilience of the Canadian fixed-income market;
• improve the quality, clarity and market-wide understanding of Canadian fixed-income trading practices;
• evaluate and propose changes to market infrastructure;
• communicate any recommendations and analysis to oversight authorities, regulators, industry groups and other market participants as needed.

The Forum will not discuss monetary policy or policy issues directly relating to the size and distribution of the federal government’s debt programme which are covered through other fora.

How We're Organized

The Forum’s membership will be drawn from senior individuals in the Canadian financial community, across both buy and sell side firms, who are active in Canadian fixed-income, ensuring a broad geographical representation.

The Bank of Canada will select approximately fifteen diverse private sector participants to be members of the Forum in order to ensure a range of perspectives to the Forum’s discussions. Members represent small and large primary dealers in Government of Canada securities, pension funds, insurance companies, asset managers and other participants involved in the Canadian fixed-income market. Periodically, representatives of non-member organizations will be invited to discuss or present on specific issues.

The Forum will be co-chaired by the Bank of Canada Deputy Governor responsible for financial markets and the Chief of the Financial Markets Department. Additional Bank of Canada attendees will be present at each meeting as required. The Bank of Canada will also provide the secretariat function for the Forum, including all public communications.

Members will be selected for an initial fixed term of two years. Membership may be renewed by the Bank of Canada based on the members’ past contribution to the Forum’s discussions. The membership will start to gradually rotate between firms after two years.

Members are expected to:

• possess a high level of expertise and knowledge of Canadian fixed income to support discussion of the functioning and structure of the Canadian market;
• have sufficient authority to muster their institution’s support and endorsement for the Forum’s activities;
• actively participate in the Forum’s quarterly meetings and provide the resources to support the Forum’s work. This includes reviewing market developments, suggesting agenda items, contributing to Forum surveys conducted by the secretariat, and participating in the analysis of specific market related issues;
• provide views to help achieve the Forum’s main objective of promoting efficient and resilient market functioning;
• participate and/or lead ad-hoc working groups formed to focus on specific issues;
• be aware of their obligations under the Competition Act and avoid the disclosure of competitively sensitive information. Members are expected to inform the co-chairs of any Competition Act concerns arising from the Forum’s discussions;
• attend all regularly scheduled meeting in person (no conference call details will be provided). There will be no alternate or substitute members.

Any change in a member’s position with his or her employer will result in an automatic review of their membership.

The Forum will meet in-person quarterly at the Bank of Canada office in Toronto. Meeting dates for the following year will be published annually. Meetings are expected to take place in January/February, April, June, and September/October. Additional ad-hoc meetings, either in-person or via conference call, may be called on short-notice to discuss time-sensitive topical issues.

Meeting agendas will be prepared by the secretariat in consultation with the members and the co-chairs. Agendas will be published on the Forum’s webpage approximately one week ahead of each meeting in order to allow non-members to provide relevant feedback, either via the private sector members or directly to the Forum’s secretariat.

The secretariat will keep summaries of each meeting, including (i) a list of attendees; (ii) a brief description of the topics discussed; and (iii) any decisions or recommendations reached, as necessary. Meeting summaries, including the material presented at each meeting, will be published on the Forum’s webpage. Unless otherwise agreed to, meeting summaries will not attribute expressed views to any specific member. Meeting summaries will be circulated to members for comments before publication.

Our Members

Bank of Canada

Lynn Patterson

Deputy Governor, Bank of Canada
Co-Chair

Toni Gravelle

Chief of Financial Markets, Bank of Canada
Co-Chair

Market Representatives

CARR

The Canadian Alternative Reference Rate Working Group (CARR) was created to identify and seek to develop a new term risk-free Canadian dollar interest rate benchmark.

Contact CFIF

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