Fund Facts
Aperçu du fonds in French
Quick definition
Fund Facts is the plain-language, two-page disclosure document that Canadian regulators require dealers to deliver before you buy a mutual fund. It summarizes what the fund holds, its risk rating, past performance, and every fee, including the trailing commission.
The two pages you must receive before buying
Every mutual fund series sold in Canada has a Fund Facts document, mandated by the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA). Since 2016, dealers must deliver it to you before you buy, not buried in a confirmation afterward. It replaces a prospectus nobody read with two pages almost anyone can.
What is in it, section by section:
- Quick facts: the fund's size, its MER, the minimum investment, and the date the series launched.
- What the fund invests in: top 10 holdings and the mix by asset class and region.
- Risk rating: a five-band scale from low to high, based on historical volatility.
- Past performance: year-by-year returns in a bar chart, best and worst 3-month periods, and the average annual return.
- Costs: sales charges, the fund's expenses, and the trailing commission, shown both as a percentage and in dollars per $1,000 invested.
- Dealer compensation: what the firm selling you the fund is paid.
- Your rights: including the right to cancel shortly after buying.
How to actually use it
Four things to check, in order: the MER (anything near 2% deserves justification), the trailing commission (that is the part paying your dealer), the risk band, and the 10-year average return compared with a low-cost index fund in the same category. If the fund has trailed a comparable index fund by roughly its fee, you are looking at the cost of the wrapper.
One caution on the risk rating: it is based on volatility over past years, so a fund rated "low to medium" can still lose real money over a short horizon. The scale understates risk for money you need within a few years.
The exchange-traded sibling is ETF Facts, an almost identical document required for every ETF.
In Canada
Fund Facts is a CSA creation and one of the more successful disclosure reforms in Canadian investing: pre-sale delivery has been mandatory since May 2016. You also generally have a short window to change your mind, commonly described as 48 hours after receiving your purchase confirmation to cancel, with the exact rescission and withdrawal rights varying by province (as of July 2026). The document itself tells you what applies to you.
Worked example
Dana's advisor recommends a Canadian equity fund. Before signing, Dana reads the Fund Facts: MER 2.05%, trailing commission 1%, risk "medium," 10-year average return 5.9%. She pulls up the ETF Facts for a broad Canadian index ETF: fee under 0.1%, 10-year return 7.4%. Two pages each, five minutes total, and the real question, "is the advice worth about 2 points a year?", is finally on the table.
Reviewed by Alexandre Bernier, CFP®, CIM®, PFP®·Updated July 2026