Oh yeah I get all that but you did make a good point, as the ones that you always play with and do yourself don't tend to do as well as the ones set and forget that are managed by a bank unless you really get lucky. Investing is a full time job and most of us doing it on the side are rarely going to do better than the banks do.
You seem to have an unusual system there. I've never heard of banks here making actual investment decisions.
Actively managed mutual funds do some of that but the mutual fund itself will generally have global restrictions which limit their freedom. So for example, say you invest in a pharmaceutical mufu (mutual fund) or ETF (exchange traded fund). They have some freedom in terms of picking and choosing drug makers, properly balancing the portfolio and such. But let them try to buy a million shares of FoMoCo (Ford) and if they can even do that, they catch all manner feces - from the SEC, the exchanges, other regulators, etc.
But the way you describe it, it sounds like the bank has free reign. You can't even specify an industry sector. That sounds a lot like what we call hedge funds here. While some of those do make oogobs of money, the fee structures are insane.
You must have fiduciaries in Canada. Their obligation is to you and your financial health. So they can't shill for shitty companies that basically pay off the broker to buy shares for their clients. That's why I have a burning hatred for brokers. They basically have a license to steal.
I really hope that's not how your banks work and you have at least some level of control over your investments.
If not, take a trip to the states and set up an account with Vanguard, or more actively traded mufus. You'll need a broker too in order to buy things like ETFs and individual stocks. But those are your decisions. Just ignore whatever "hot new stocks" they try to push on you. They're taking care of old number one with those transactions and not you.
Just as an aside, a lot of countries have capital controls which serve to limit how much of their currency can flow to another jurisdiction. You tend to see this in places like China that have "managed economies." I'd be surprised if they have any meaningful capital controls.
IOW, if the govt isn't trying to control the outflow of capital, you should have a free hand to send your money wherever. The worst part about the process will be converting your Loonies to USD. Last I checked, the exchange rate of Loonies to USD is brutal. So maybe see if there's at least a chance you might get a more favorable exchange rate in the near future. Just don't waste a lot of time on this sort of minutia. The sooner you get the cash where it needs to go, the sooner it can start working for you.
To start, Vanguard might be your best choice and they're ideal for the buy and forget type investor.
There are also DRIPs (direct reinvestment plans) where you pick say a dozen individual stocks (preferably ones with high market capitalization (think IBM, Merck, AMD, Broadcom, etc.). Make your initial purchases and then let it ride. The company I use is Computershare.
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