• For segregated fund and variable annuity products that contain investment guarantees in the form of benefit guarantees, a sustained increase in interest rate volatility or a decline in interest rates would increase the costs of hedging the benefit guarantees provided. The impact of changes in interest rates are managed within the variable annuity dynamic hedging program. We experience ALDA performance risk when actual returns are lower than expected returns. • ALDA performance risk arises from general fund investments in directly-owned real estate, timber properties, farmland properties, infrastructure, oil and gas assets, and private equities. • Where these assets are used to support policy liabilities, the policy valuation incorporates projected investment returns on these assets. ALDA assumptions vary by asset class and generally have a similar impact on policy liabilities as public equities would. If actual returns are lower than the expected returns, there will be a negative impact to the net income attributed to shareholders. A reduction in the outlook for expected future returns for ALDA, which could result from a variety of factors such as a fundamental change in future expected economic growth or declining risk premiums due to increased competition for such assets, would increase policy liabilities and reduce net income attributed to shareholders. Further, if returns on certain external asset benchmarks used to determine permissible assumed returns under the CIA Standards of Practice are lower than expected, expected future returns will be adjusted accordingly and the Company’s policy liabilities will increase, reducing net income attributed to shareholders. • The value of oil and gas assets could be adversely affected by declines in energy prices as well as by a number of other factors including production declines, uncertainties associated with estimating oil and natural gas reserves, difficult economic conditions, changes in consumer preferences to transition to a low-carbon economy, competition from renewable energy providers and geopolitical events. Changes in government regulation of the oil and gas industry, including environmental regulation, carbon taxes and changes in the royalty rates resulting from provincial royalty reviews, could also adversely affect the value of our oil and gas investments. • Difficult economic conditions could result in higher vacancy, lower rental rates and lower demand for real estate investments, all of which would adversely impact the value of our diversified real estate investments. Our commercial real estate investments may be negatively impacted by the trends solidified by COVID-19, including the digitization of work and the transformation of physical retail. Difficult economic conditions could also prevent companies in which we have made private equity investments from achieving their business plans and could cause the value of these investments to fall, or even cause the companies to fail. Sustained declines in valuation multiples in the public equity market would also likely cause values to decline in our private equity portfolio. The timing and amount of investment income from private equity investments is difficult to predict, and investment income from these investments can vary from quarter to quarter. • Our timberland and farmland holdings are exposed to natural risks, such as prolonged drought, wildfires, insects, windstorms, flooding, and climate change. We are generally not insured for these types of risks but seek to proactively mitigate their impact through portfolio diversification and prudent operating practices. • A rising interest rate environment could result in the value of some of our ALDA investments declining, particularly those with fixed contractual cash flows such as long-leased real estate and certain infrastructure investments. • The negative impact of changes in market or economic factors can take time to be fully reflected in the valuations of private investments, including ALDA, especially if the change is large and rapid, as market participants endeavor to adjust their forecasts and better understand the potential medium to long-term impact of such changes. As a result, valuation changes in any given period may reflect the delayed impact of events that occurred in prior periods. Our real estate valuation is based on appraisals, and these appraisals may lag behind current market transactions. • We rely on a diversified portfolio of ALDA to generate relatively stable investment returns. Diversification benefits may be reduced at times, especially during a period of economic stress, which would adversely affect portfolio returns. • The Company determines investment return assumptions for ALDA in accordance with the Standards of Practice for the valuation of insurance contract liabilities and guidance published by the CIA. The guidance requires that the investment return assumption for these assets should not be higher than the historical long-term average returns of an appropriate broad-based index. Where such experience is not available, the investment return assumption for these assets should not result in a lower reserve than an assumption based on a historical-return benchmark for public equities in the same jurisdiction. As a result, the impact of changes in the historical returns for public equity benchmarks may result in an update to our investment return assumptions for ALDA. Our liabilities are valued based on an assumed asset investment strategy over the long-term. • We develop an investment strategy for the assets that back our liabilities. The strategy involves making assumptions on the kind of assets in which we will invest and the returns such assets will generate. • We may not be able to implement our investment strategy as intended due to a lack of assets available at the returns we assume. This may result in a change in investment strategy and/or assumed future returns, thus adversely impacting our financial results. • From time to time, we may decide to adjust our portfolio asset mix which may result in adverse impacts to our financial results for one or more periods. We experience foreign exchange risk as a substantial portion of our business is transacted in currencies other than Canadian dollars. • Our financial results are reported in Canadian dollars. A substantial portion of our business is transacted in currencies other than Canadian dollars, mainly U.S. dollars, Hong Kong dollars and Japanese yen. If the Canadian dollar strengthens relative to these currencies, net income attributed to shareholders would decline and our reported shareholders’ equity would decline. A weakening of the Canadian dollar against the foreign currencies in which we do business would have the opposite effect and would increase net income attributed to shareholders and shareholders’ equity. 70 | 2022AnnualReport | Management’sDiscussionandAnalysis