As the markets hit all-time highs again, one of the things that has become top of mind for me personally is how to make sure that our investments are actually secure.

If you're a long-term passive, total market index investor like me, then you've definitely seen your portfolio grow quite substantially over the years. With this, one begins to wonder: What can be done to ensure the security of those investments?

In this case, I'm not talking about the volatility of the investments themselves, but rather how to ensure that our investment and other financial accounts do not get hacked, that someone doesn't destroy our credit score, and that we don't become victims of identity theft, among the many other security threats that exist.

This is especially prevalent in this age of AI, where it is easier than ever for someone to replicate our voice, or have AI crawl the internet to pull personal information about us that can be used to access our sensitive accounts, steal our money, or make critical changes that can cripple our net worth.

Especially since it's tax season right now, where we have to be extra diligent due to things like CRA scams, I thought it would be a good idea to do a deep dive on the bases we need to cover from a security standpoint when it comes to our finances.

With that, I wanted to bring on an expert who literally works in the security industry day in and day out, to take us through the bases we need to have covered, as well as provide us with some practical solutions, including free and paid tools that we can use to ensure we are not being negligent on the security side of our finances.

My guest today is Leigh Tynan. She's been the Director of Online Security at TELUS here in Canada for the past six years. My goal was to have her come on almost like a personal security consultant for you and me, to teach us what bases we need to cover when it comes to our online security here in Canada, and also how and when we should actually use the different security tools out there.

I figured in this world of online security, it's one of those cases where we don't know what we don't know. So, it would be valuable to have someone in Canada from the actual security industry come on to give us a checklist of sorts, along with an explanation, so that we can ensure there isn't some component we forgot about, or didn't even know about, that ends up being the avenue through which our private information is leaked or our sensitive financial accounts are compromised.

Alright, let's get into the interview.

Resources from the Episode:

TELUS Online Security (what I've been using)

Free Digital Literacy Education Resources from TELUS Wise

In 2026, it is estimated that nearly half of all Canadian mortgages will be up for renewal. This involves over 1 million households here in Canada. Because of the change in interest rates, some of these households could see their monthly payments jump by 15% to 20% on average—and in extreme cases, even higher.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that if your mortgage is coming up for renewal, the stress test requirements have likely changed since the last time you took out a mortgage years ago.

You actually have more power than ever to leave your current mortgage provider if you find a better mortgage elsewhere, and this is because the stress test has been removed in certain cases. Homeowners who were previously "trapped" with their current mortgage provider can now freely move to a competitor offering a lower rate. This forces the lenders to actually compete for your business.

In this episode, we're going to cover exactly how you can navigate all of these changes so you can keep more of your hard-earned money invested in your portfolio, rather than handing over an excessive amount to your mortgage provider.

Specifically, we're going to cover:

• What Canadian mortgage holders need to know about these changes to the stress test to avoid "payment shock" and take advantage of the new switching flexibility.

• How to choose between a fixed-rate vs. variable-rate mortgage with everything that is going on in Canada right now, based on the latest rates.

• How to execute an advanced hybrid strategy using a re-advanceable mortgage if you have a lump sum of cash to invest, but are nervous about putting it all into the market at once with valuations at all-time highs.

To help us dive into all of this, I invited Sean Cooper back onto the show. Sean is the resident mortgage expert for this podcast, he's the bestselling author of the book "Burn Your Mortgage," and he's a fully licensed mortgage broker. He is who I go to and send all friends, family, and listeners of the show to for any mortgage-related questions and research. Because he actually does this as a full-time job, he is up to date on all the latest mortgage rules, changes, and the best interest rates currently available here in Canada.

If you have any mortgage-related questions, or if you just want to see Sean's up-to-date research on the best mortgages that he's been able to find across the dozens of lenders that he's constantly monitoring all over Canada, you can send him a message, or book a free call with him over at buildwealthcanada.ca/sean.

Alright, let's get into the show!