tada, my understanding of the CRA wrt to registered accounts is basically the same as yours, narmacs and golfs, the CRA is only interested in going after those who are using registered accounts to conduct a business. The last piece I read on this a few months ago said they were really only looking at financial industry professionals who were frequently trading their registered accounts. Remember that these professionals already have to account for market capital gains as earned income.

My personal opinion is that the CRA would likely only pursue a blatant case of what they consider abuse as once they try to tax gains, losses become deductible expenses. Since generally more people lose money than make money in the markets I’m sure they are loathe to open a window where people are trying to claim past losses as losses from an “on going business” in registered accounts.

All just my opinion