Conduct and Practices Handbook

The Conduct and Practices Handbook (CPH) is a Canadian securities compliance course centered on ethics, client-facing obligations, supervision, account handling, and conduct risk. This guide follows the official CSI curriculum and presents the material in exam-preparation format using current CIRO-era terminology.

How This Guide Is Structured

The book follows the official nine-chapter curriculum published by CSI. Each chapter breaks the curriculum into topic pages that explain the rule, show where it matters in practice, and highlight the kinds of fact patterns that appear in CPH-style questions.

How to Study This Book

• Start with the chapter page to see the official topic list and the main exam traps.
• Use each topic page to learn the rule, the reasoning behind it, and the client-impact angle.
• Pay extra attention to complaint handling, suitability, disclosure, record-keeping, privacy, and post-trade obligations because those themes recur across the curriculum.
• Treat historical references to IIROC or MFDA as historical only. The current self-regulatory body is CIRO.

What Is Current in This Version

This merged guide reflects the current nine-chapter curriculum, uses CIRO-era framing, and updates time-sensitive operating points such as T+1 settlement where relevant. It is designed as a companion guide and does not replace official CSI or CIRO materials.

In this section

• Standards of Conduct and Ethics
  Study the conduct standards, ethical obligations, and professional habits expected of Canadian securities registrants.
  • Core Standards of Conduct and Ethics
    Learn the conduct standards that support fair dealing, client protection, confidentiality, and defensible daily practice.
  • Industry Rules and Ethical Conduct
    See how ethical judgment, firm policy, and Canadian securities rules work together in real conduct decisions.
  • Daily Conduct Rules for Representatives
    Apply practical conduct rules on client interest, disclosure, confidentiality, documentation, and escalation in daily representative work.
• Ethical Decision Making
  Build the ethical reasoning skills needed to recognize conflicts, evaluate choices, and defend sound client-facing decisions.
  • Ethics in Securities Practice
    Understand how ethics supports trust, client protection, and sound judgment beyond bare legal compliance.
  • Values, Ethics, and the Law
    Distinguish personal values, ethical standards, and legal duties when they point in different directions.
  • Value Awareness
    Use value awareness to recognize bias, respect client priorities, and resolve value conflicts in practice.
  • Ethical Dilemmas
    Understand how to identify, analyze, escalate, and document ethical dilemmas in Canadian securities practice.
  • Practical Ethical Decision Making
    Apply a step-by-step framework to difficult conduct situations and choose defensible next actions.
• Canadian Regulatory Framework
  Understand the institutions, protections, and anti-financial-crime rules that shape Canadian securities regulation.
  • Core Principles of Securities Regulation
    Understand the purpose, structure, and core principles of Canadian securities regulation, including investor protection and market integrity.
  • Canadian Securities Regulators and Public Bodies
    Understand the main provincial, national, and federal bodies that shape Canadian securities regulation and financial oversight.
  • CIRO and Self-Regulation
    Understand CIRO's role as the national self-regulatory organization, including dealer oversight, rulemaking, enforcement, and market integrity functions.
  • CIPF and Investor Protection
    Understand what CIPF is designed to protect, what it does not protect, and how insolvency-related client protection works.
  • Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing
    Understand AML and anti-terrorist-financing controls, FINTRAC reporting, red flags, and escalation in securities accounts.
• Working with Clients
  Review registration, communications, sales literature, conduct expectations, and privacy obligations when dealing with clients.
  • Registration Requirements for Representatives
    Understand sponsorship, proficiency, category limits, continuing education, and material-change reporting for registered representatives.
  • Public Communications
    Understand fair, balanced, and properly supervised public communications, including social media, approvals, and recordkeeping.
  • Sales Literature Standards
    Understand approval, balance, disclosure, supervision, and recordkeeping requirements for sales literature and related marketing content.
  • Client Conduct in Practice
    Understand client-first conduct, clear communication, conflict handling, confidentiality, escalation, and documentation when dealing with clients.
  • Privacy and Cybersecurity
    Understand privacy duties, secure handling of client information, cyber-risk controls, and breach escalation in securities practice.
• Client Discovery and Account Opening
  Learn how account-opening controls, client discovery, disclosures, and records support strong onboarding decisions.
  • Opening Client Accounts
    Understand account-opening controls, account types, identity checks, approvals, and records for new client accounts.
  • The New Account Application Form
    Understand what the NAAF records, why it matters, and how it supports KYC, suitability, supervision, and disputes.
  • Completing the New Account Application Form
    Understand how to complete the NAAF accurately, verify identity and authority, resolve inconsistencies, and support supervisory approval.
  • Client Disclosure Requirements
    Understand relationship disclosure, fee and conflict disclosure, timing, documentation, and update obligations in client onboarding.
  • Client Records
    Understand what client records must show, how they support suitability and supervision, and why secure retention matters.
• Product Due Diligence and Advice
  Review product due diligence, suitability, new issues, and bid-related decisions that shape client recommendations.
  • Suitability of Investments and Strategies
    Assess whether a product or strategy fits the client’s profile, objectives, risk, costs, and current circumstances.
  • Product Due Diligence
    Understand issuer and product review, costs, risks, liquidity, shelf approval, and ongoing monitoring in product due diligence.
  • New Issues and Prospectus Exemptions
    Understand new issues, prospectus disclosure, key NI 45-106 exemptions, and exempt-market suitability controls.
  • Take-Over and Issuer Bids
    Understand the current Canadian rules, shareholder protections, and decision points involved in take-over bids and issuer bids.
• Trading, Settlement, and Prohibited Activities
  Review how trades are executed, how orders work, what conduct is prohibited, and how settlement problems are handled.
  • How Securities Trading Works
    Understand Canadian trading venues, participants, order routing, transparency, and the trade lifecycle through T+1 settlement.
  • Order Types and Trading Instructions
    Understand the main order types, time-in-force instructions, execution trade-offs, and documentation issues in client trading.
  • Trading Conduct
    Understand client-first trading conduct, suitability, disclosure, documentation, and supervision in securities execution.
  • Prohibited Activities
    Understand insider trading, tipping, market manipulation, frontrunning, unauthorized trading, and related escalation duties.
  • Settlement, Transfers, and Corrections
    Understand T+1 settlement, client transfers, trade corrections, and the controls that prevent post-trade errors.
• Client Accounts and Relationships
  Learn how client accounts are maintained, monitored, reported, and serviced through transfers, complaints, and account controls.
  • Client Transaction Accounting
    Learn how firms record, reconcile, correct, and supervise client transactions under current books-and-records expectations.
  • Margin Accounts
    Understand how margin accounts work, why leverage increases risk, and how firms monitor deficiency and liquidation risk.
  • Cash Accounts
    Understand how cash accounts settle, why full payment matters, and how firms address funding deficiencies and short-sale restrictions.
  • Trade Confirmations and Statements
    Understand trade confirmations, statements, cost disclosure, delivery controls, and recordkeeping for client trade communications.
  • Client Complaints and Transfers
    Understand complaint handling, current timing expectations, OBSI recourse, and the proper handling of account transfer requests.
• Putting It All Together
  Consolidate the major conduct-and-practice themes through review and integrated client scenarios.
  • Conduct and Practice Review
    Integrate ethics, KYC, suitability, communication, records, conflicts, and escalation into one practical conduct framework.
  • The Chengs Case Study
    Apply KYC, suitability, communication, conflicts, execution, and follow-up controls through a family-account case study.