April 18, 2011 Organization

Montréal - The Education and Good Governance Fund (EGGF) of the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) has granted more than $750,000 to support 13 Québec education and university research projects focusing on financial matters.

School projects

The EGGF is supporting two projects aimed at elementary school children: initiation to money-related concepts by the ACEF de l'Île-Jésus and The ABCs of finance, a project spearheaded by the Société de gestion du réseau informatique des commissions scolaires, which will provide elementary school teachers with a bank of learning and evaluation situations related to financial matters.

At the secondary school level, the EGGF is supporting Les Prix du coeur de la publicité, a contest run by the ACEF Rive-sud de Québec intended to develop students' critical awareness about advertising.

The EGGF is also providing financial support for the establishment of a financial literacy college, which will oversee the creation and delivery of training activities and the development of a website and a body of knowledge geared to small investors.

At the university level, the University of Sherbrooke will receive financial support from the Fund to develop a new master's program in suppressing financial crime. The fraud prevention research group at the University also plans to create practical tools to help suppress financial crime.

The EGGF is also supporting two projects submitted by Laval University. One project will develop educational tools for investors in the form of workshops and web capsules, while the other project, Understanding the financial services industry, will generate an on-line educational tool that gives consumers an overview of the functioning and governance of the financial services industry, financial instruments and the relationship between risk and return.

Community-based education projects

Two community-based initiatives will receive EGGF financial support: À vos affaires, à vos amours, a project by the ACEF de Lanaudière that will develop tools to help blended families deal with the financial issues they typically face, and the University Women's League of Montréal, which will set up 15 case study resource materials geared for women aged 45+. These tools will teach them to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills and to protect themselves against fraud.

The EGGF is renewing its financial support for Money Dollars Make Cents (sense), a financial literacy project designed for the clientele of the Jamaican Canadian Women's League of Montréal, which is primarily made up of visible minorities (young people, seniors and single parent families).

The EGGF is also again providing funding to the 2011 Dans la marge jusqu'au cou ! campaign, aimed at enhancing credit card knowledge and behaviour to help consumers avoid getting up to their neck in debt.

Research projects

The EGGF is providing financial support to the project submitted by the Observatoire du droit québécois des valeurs mobilières to conduct an in-depth analysis of the on-line distribution of financial products and services and identify the type and severity of threats facing consumers.

Concordia University's Perceptions of board alignment with shareholder interests project, which focuses on the relationship between corporate performance and board effectiveness, is also receiving EGGF financial support.

These 13 projects were selected from among the 32 submissions to the EGGF Assessment Committee as part of the 2010 call for projects. Educational organizations and institutions seeking EGGF funding under the 2011 call for projects should consult the EGGF section of the AMF website.

The Autorité des marchés financiers ("AMF") is the regulatory and oversight body for Québec's financial industry.

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