The Canadian Association of Financial Planners conference, which is being held in Edmonton, is on its second day.

About 700 people are at the conference to attend the education sessions, keynote speaking engagements, and most importantly to participate in a straw vote at the annual general meeting, which is scheduled for 16:15 MT.

CAFP members will be asked during the AGM to take a non-binding straw vote to gauge the acceptance of the proposal to merge with the Canadian Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors. They will be asked to consider a name for the new organization and membership criteria. Those Members not present at AGM will be polled through e-mail.

As the proposal stands, members of the new organization may have the option of becoming a Planner member. That would mean having a recognized planning designation, using the six-step process when advising clients, abiding by an established code of ethics, employing practice standards, and being subject to periodic peer review of financial planning practices. Individuals whose practice would not fit into this box may opt to become Advisor members.

It’s also been proposed that all members of the new organization would commit to 30 hours per year of continuing education, triennial ethics examination, and mandatory maintenance of approved errors and omissions insurance coverage. Individuals with dual memberships would enjoy a reduction in their membership fees through the merger. Nearly 600 CAFP members are also CAIFA members.

“If the response is still positive [after today’s straw vote] we’ll call a special general meeting of the members for the last Saturday in September in Ottawa and that will coincide with the CAIFA annual meeting. That’s where we’ll formally put the motion to our members to create CAFPA,” says Terry Taylor, CAFP president.

Steve Howard, CAIFA’s CEO says that his expectation of today’s vote remains positive. “Both CAFP and CAIFA have received outstanding support for the merger as a concept. After the straw vote the leaders of the two organizations will put out an announcement of any fine tuning that we’re doing to bring this forward,” he says. He expects that announcement to be out to members in the first week of June.