Ms. Bethune Whiston was appointed Vice-Chair of the Commission and the Tribunal on April 11, 2018. Ms. Whiston is a Partner in the Ontario Consulting, and Governance, Regulatory and Compliance Practices of LifeWorks (previously known as Morneau Shepell) and consults, speaks and writes internationally on pension & benefit plan issues. With over 30 years of experience, Ms. Whiston manages LifeWorks' Pension & Benefits Consulting Legal Team in Toronto and co-manages the Toronto Regulatory Practice, a large multi-specialty team of people working on over 180 pension plan wind-ups and restructurings in Canada. She is also responsible for advising the firm’s professionals and clients on a broad range of pension & benefit plan issues. Ms. Whiston was appointed a member to the Financial Services Tribunal on December 17, 2013.
Bethune was a faculty member of the Osgoode Certificate in Pension Law for many years, and has held leadership positions on a number of committees and councils in the industry. Bethune is a regular participant on Industry Working Groups set up by the Canadian Association of Pension Supervisory Authorities and has co-ordinated publication of the Morneau Shepell Handbook of Canadian Pension and Benefit Plans over the past 15 years. Ms. Whiston holds a B.A. from Western University (1983) and a J.D. from the University of Toronto (1986).
Mr. Paul Farley was reappointed as a member of the Financial Services Tribunal on February 5, 2016. He has practiced law for forty-two years and, in April of 2016, retired as the Director of Investigations and Prosecutions at the Chartered Professional Accountants of Ontario, a self-regulating professional organization with over 90,000 members. Mr. Farley has more than thirty-five years of experience in administrative law and appears often before administrative tribunals and at all levels of the courts in Ontario on the prosecution of regulatory offences. He served as a Chair of the Advisory Board for the Financial Services Commission for 11 years.
Mr. Farley was advisor to the Board of the Alliance for Excellence in Investigative and Forensic Accounting from 2002 – 2004. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of Stevenson Memorial Hospital in Alliston, Ontario for six years and, since May of 2021, serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Georgian Bay General Hospital. Mr. Farley continues his career in the law as a sole practitioner.
Members
Mr. Anthony Fredericks has over 40 years of insurance experience, is a fellow of the Insurance Institute of Canada and a Canadian Risk Manager. Mr. Fredericks is the CEO for several companies, including A.M. Fredericks Underwriting Management Ltd., Canrisc Insurance Consulting and AMF Credit Corp.
A.M. Fredericks Underwriting Management Ltd. operates as a Managing General Underwriter, providing commercial insurance policies on behalf of domestic and foreign insurers. February 2018 marked the company’s 25th year in business. Canrisc Insurance Consulting Ltd. conducts borrower insurance reviews on behalf of financial institutions. The company has been in business for over 20 years. AMF Credit Corp. offers Commercial premium finance solutions for insureds across Canada. The company has been in business for 15 years.
In his spare time, Mr. Fredericks has spent 25 years teaching courses and marking final examination papers for the Insurance Institute of Canada.
Mr. Martin Guest was appointed to the Tribunal in December 2021. Previously, he served as General Counsel Canada for Manulife, with responsibility for all legal and compliance activities for its Canadian Division, including banking, group benefits, insurance, investments, and pensions. Prior to joining Manulife, Martin was a partner at Torys LLP. Prior to that, he spent 13 years at Fidelity Investments Canada. He began his career at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt. A graduate of the University of Toronto, Trinity College (BA, 1984) and the Faculty of Law (LL.B., 1987); he is also qualified as a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA, 1996) and holds the ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors (2018).
Ms. Caroline (Cally) Hunt resides in Toronto and is Head, Finance Technology Transformation, Bank of Montreal. She is responsible for modernizing process and technology to support the role of Finance as a strategic partner in driving business performance. She is a member of the Chief Financial Officer’s Senior Executive Team, and the Bank’s Leadership Council on Inclusion and Diversity. Ms Hunt has been at the Bank of Montreal since 1996, in increasingly more senior roles in accounting and finance.
Ms. Hunt received her LLB from the University of Western Ontario in 1980 and her Chartered Accountant designation in 1984. She was made a Fellow of the Ontario CPA Institute in 2013.
Mr. Christopher Portner was appointed a member of the Financial Services Tribunal on August 17, 2017. He recently completed a six-year term as a Commissioner of the Ontario Securities Commission and, for the last two years of his term, was also the Lead Director of the Commission’s Board of Directors. Prior to joining the Commission, Mr. Portner was a senior partner of Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP with extensive experience leading major transactions and providing governance and strategic advice to corporations in banking and financial services, pension and private equity investments and in the electricity, nuclear energy and major corporate real estate sectors. He also served as one of the Managing Partners of his firm and as a director of a number of public, private and not-for-profit corporations.
Mr. Nicholas Savona is Chief Compliance Officer at Independent Trading Group where he is directly responsible for regulatory oversight of capital markets and trading compliance. His career in capital markets spans over two decades in senior leadership roles in sales and trading at various firms, from large-scale and boutique broker dealers, to alternative trading systems with a global reach. In addition to his role at ITG, Nick is an adjunct professor at Seneca College’s school of accounting and financial services as well as an interim board member of the Health and Supportive Care Providers Oversight Authority.
In 2020, Nick was appointed by the Minister of Finance, as a member of the Financial Services Tribunal of Ontario, which adjudicates cases across financial services sectors. He also serves as a member of IIROC’s Ontario District Council and is a past member of the hearing panel from 2010-2019. Nick has been an active contributor to policy issues on various industry committees, including the OSC’s Market Structure Advisory committee, IIAC’s Independent Dealer’s Committee, past Vice-Chairman of the Canadian Security Traders’ Association (CSTA) and a Governor of the Security Traders’ Association (STA). Nick has been a guest contributor to the Financial Post, Traders Magazine and Markets Media on issues regarding securities regulation and market structure.
Nick holds an LL.M. from Osgoode Hall Law School with a speciality in Securities Law.
Mr. Faisal Siddiqi is a Managing Director, Actuarial with the University Pension Plan (Ontario). Prior to that he was employed with several major actuarial consulting firms and has been consulting on pension matters for over 30 years. In his role at UPP, Faisal manages all actuarial matters and supports the plan’s risk management and investment functions. Faisal graduated with distinction from the University of Waterloo with a Bachelor of Mathematics degree in Actuarial Science with a minor in Statistics. He is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and Canadian Institute of Actuaries and is a frequent speaker at many pension and actuarial meetings. He has participated in many Society of Actuaries and Canadian Institute of Actuaries professional exam and pension industry committees.
Mr. Ed Skwarek was appointed as a member of the Financial Services Tribunal on March 18, 2020. Ed is currently Vice President of Legal and Regulatory matters at The Financial Advisors Association of Canada. In this capacity he oversees all internal legal matters, in addition to working with regulators in the financial services sector and governments in reviewing, assessing, and commenting on legal and regulatory reforms impacting financial services, insurance, and capital markets. He also oversaw the Public Relations, Marketing, and Communications and undertook to rebuild these teams.
Ed writes extensively on issues of reform within the broader financial services sector. He has worked for a major Bay Street law firm, securities regulators, product developers and distributors. Ed holds a B.A. from York University, an LL.B. from the University of Windsor, and has two specialists LL.M. from the London School of Economics in Corporate and Securities Law, and International Business Law.
Ms. Jill M. Wagman is currently Managing Principal of Eckler Ltd. and Chair of Eckler’s Board of Directors. She is a qualified actuary (FSA, FCIA) with 30 years of pension consulting experience and has her ICD.D designation.
Jill was appointed as a member of the Financial Services Tribunal (FST) of Ontario December 17, 2013. From 2009-2016 she served as a member of the Actuarial Standards Oversight Council (ASOC), acting as Vice-Chair from 2015-2016. Jill also served on the pension committee of the board of Queen’s University from 2013-2016.
Jill has served as a member of several other industry and professional committees including chairing the Task Force on International Pension and Employee Benefit Standards and acting as the CIA representative to the International Actuarial Association’s Pension and Employee Benefits Committee. She has also served as a member of the Canadian Accounting Standards Board’s Employee Benefits Advisory Group, the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) Employee Future Benefits Implementation Guide Working Group, the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) Committee on Relations with Other Professions, the Committee on the Actuarial Valuation of Post-Employment Benefit Plans and has chaired the Workers’ Compensation Committee. Jill graduated with distinction from the University of Waterloo with an Honours Bachelor of Mathematics in 1990, and from the ICD-Rotman Directors Education Program in March 2017.
Ms. Ruth Wahl was appointed a member of the Financial Services Tribunal on December 2, 2021. She is a senior partner practising in the Business Law Group of Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP. She has an LL.B. and an LL.M. (Banking and Financial Institutions) from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. As Chair of the firm’s national Research Team, she provides opinions, analysis and advice on a broad range of legal and compliance issues. She has chaired and served on the boards of non-profit corporations and taught advanced legal analysis to upper-year law students and Bar Admission candidates. Ruth has written on a wide range of topics, most recently authoring the “Canada” chapter of Set-off Law and Practice, An International Handbook (Oxford University Press), COVID-19: Legal considerations for Canadian boards (NRFC Thought Leadership Publications) and, as co-contributor with Maurice Coombs, updating the Business Corporations (2022 Re-issue) chapter for Halsbury’s Laws of Canada.
The Financial Services Tribunal meets quarterly.