With CST Plans, you receive professional investment management and monitoring. Our investment strategy aims to provide long-term value by investing to both protect your principal and earn positive long-term returns. The onus is on us to choose an appropriate mix of investments and we partner with leading institutional money managers including Fiera Capital Corp., TD Asset Management, and CIBC Asset Management to maximize the value of your RESP. We invest with one goal in mind: maximizing the value of your RESP over an 17 or 18-year time horizon so that you can pay for your child’s education. We do this with an investment focus of protecting your principal and delivering positive returns using tried-and-true strategies from our years of experience as the pioneer of the RESP in Canada. Plans with another financial institution may be either managed or self-directed. If you have a managed account, an investment professional will make the investment decisions for you based on your investment objectives, risk profile and time horizon. In a self-directed account, you are required to select the specific investment vehicle (savings account, GICs, mutual funds, ETFs, etc.) depending on the level of risk you are willing to take. This means the onus is on you to choose the appropriate mix of investments.