How to find Canadian ETFs that match your ethics and risk tolerance in under 10 minutes
The MoneySense ETF Screener displays 100 of the top-performing exchange-traded funds listed on the TSX, drawn from the more than 1,600 ETFs tracked by CBOE. The Canadian ETF market has grown substantially in recent years. Most investors never get past the first three results. The screener is free, updates weekly, and sits at moneysense.ca.
It costs nothing to use. The hidden cost shows up later, when you realize you filtered for the wrong thing.
Start with the number that matters most
Most screeners default to one-year returns. That's backwards. Start with MER, the management expense ratio. It's the annual fee you pay whether the fund makes money or not.
Canadian all-in-one asset allocation ETFs (VBAL, XGRO, the usual suspects) run between 0.20% and 0.25% as of 2026. That's one-eighth the cost of the average Canadian mutual fund, which still sits above 2%. The difference on a $100,000 portfolio over 20 years is roughly $40,000, compounded.
Filter for MERs below 0.30% unless you have a specific reason to pay more. Active management qualifies as a specific reason only if the alpha justifies it. Most of the time, it doesn't.
The passive-active split is messier than it looks
The screener lets you toggle between "Passive" and "Active" strategies. Passive means index-tracking. Active means someone is making calls about what to buy and when.
What it doesn't tell you is that the "Active" label now covers everything from legitimately differentiated stock-picking to high-fee mutual funds dressed up in an ETF wrapper. Check the MER against the category average. If the fund is charging 0.75% to track a slightly tweaked version of a benchmark you can buy for 0.06%, that's not alpha. That's marketing.
The passive side is cleaner but not flawless. Index methodology changes silently. A fund tracking the S&P/TSX 60 looks stable until the index rebalances and your risk profile shifts overnight.
ESG filters catch half the ethics question
The screener includes an ESG toggle for Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria. That addresses the "personal ethics" part of the headline, assuming your ethics align with what the fund provider calls ESG.
They often don't. One investor's "clean energy" fund is another's "avoids nuclear and hydro for no clear reason" fund. The screener shows you which funds carry the ESG label. It does not show you how each provider defines it. You have to click through to the prospectus for that.
If your ethics are more specific, avoid tobacco, prioritize gender diversity on boards, overweight water scarcity themes, the screener won't get you there on its own. It narrows the field. You still have to read.
Risk tolerance is not the same as volatility
The tool lets you filter by asset class: equity, fixed income, balanced, thematic. That's a proxy for risk, not a measure of it.
A 100% equity portfolio sounds risky. A 100% equity portfolio in Canadian dividend aristocrats behaves differently than a 100% equity portfolio in junior mining stocks. The screener groups them both under "Equity."
What you want is the fund's beta, its standard deviation, and its maximum drawdown over the last market correction. The screener doesn't surface those. You find them in the fund's fact sheet, which means clicking through.
Better approach: use the screener to build a shortlist of five funds. Then pull the fact sheets and compare the numbers that actually describe risk. Volatility, tracking error, bid-ask spread on days when the market is falling. Ten minutes gets you the shortlist. The next ten minutes gets you the right fund.
The speed trap
The headline promises ten minutes. That's possible if you already know your asset allocation, your tax situation, and whether you're holding the fund in an RRSP or a TFSA. U.S.-listed ETFs held in a TFSA face withholding tax on dividends at 15% under the Canada-US tax treaty. Canadian-domiciled funds holding U.S. equities structure around that. The screener flags domicile. It doesn't explain the tax math.
You can filter fast. You can filter well. Same ten minutes, different outcome.
The MoneySense ETF Screener displays 100 of the top-performing exchange-traded funds listed on the TSX, drawn from the more than 1,600 ETFs tracked by CBOE. The Canadian ETF market has grown substantially in recent years. Most investors never get past the first three results. The screener is free, updates weekly, and sits at moneysense.ca.
It costs nothing to use. The hidden cost shows up later, when you realize you filtered for the wrong thing.
Start with the number that matters most
Most screeners default to one-year returns. That's backwards. Start with MER, the management expense ratio. It's the annual fee you pay whether the fund makes money or not.
Canadian all-in-one asset allocation ETFs (VBAL, XGRO, the usual suspects) run between 0.20% and 0.25% as of 2026. That's one-eighth the cost of the average Canadian mutual fund, which still sits above 2%. The difference on a $100,000 portfolio over 20 years is roughly $40,000, compounded.
Filter for MERs below 0.30% unless you have a specific reason to pay more. Active management qualifies as a specific reason only if the alpha justifies it. Most of the time, it doesn't.
The passive-active split is messier than it looks
The screener lets you toggle between "Passive" and "Active" strategies. Passive means index-tracking. Active means someone is making calls about what to buy and when.
What it doesn't tell you is that the "Active" label now covers everything from legitimately differentiated stock-picking to high-fee mutual funds dressed up in an ETF wrapper. Check the MER against the category average. If the fund is charging 0.75% to track a slightly tweaked version of a benchmark you can buy for 0.06%, that's not alpha. That's marketing.
The passive side is cleaner but not flawless. Index methodology changes silently. A fund tracking the S&P/TSX 60 looks stable until the index rebalances and your risk profile shifts overnight.
ESG filters catch half the ethics question
The screener includes an ESG toggle for Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria. That addresses the "personal ethics" part of the headline, assuming your ethics align with what the fund provider calls ESG.
They often don't. One investor's "clean energy" fund is another's "avoids nuclear and hydro for no clear reason" fund. The screener shows you which funds carry the ESG label. It does not show you how each provider defines it. You have to click through to the prospectus for that.
If your ethics are more specific, avoid tobacco, prioritize gender diversity on boards, overweight water scarcity themes, the screener won't get you there on its own. It narrows the field. You still have to read.
Risk tolerance is not the same as volatility
The tool lets you filter by asset class: equity, fixed income, balanced, thematic. That's a proxy for risk, not a measure of it.
A 100% equity portfolio sounds risky. A 100% equity portfolio in Canadian dividend aristocrats behaves differently than a 100% equity portfolio in junior mining stocks. The screener groups them both under "Equity."
What you want is the fund's beta, its standard deviation, and its maximum drawdown over the last market correction. The screener doesn't surface those. You find them in the fund's fact sheet, which means clicking through.
Better approach: use the screener to build a shortlist of five funds. Then pull the fact sheets and compare the numbers that actually describe risk. Volatility, tracking error, bid-ask spread on days when the market is falling. Ten minutes gets you the shortlist. The next ten minutes gets you the right fund.
The speed trap
The headline promises ten minutes. That's possible if you already know your asset allocation, your tax situation, and whether you're holding the fund in an RRSP or a TFSA. U.S.-listed ETFs held in a TFSA face withholding tax on dividends at 15% under the Canada-US tax treaty. Canadian-domiciled funds holding U.S. equities structure around that. The screener flags domicile. It doesn't explain the tax math.
You can filter fast. You can filter well. Same ten minutes, different outcome.
Sources
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