I have looked to GIC and dislike it because the money is locked in for at least 1 year.
What are the risk associated with CBIL and HISA/CASH.TO. Is there risk of the holding company (Global X in this case) defaulting the money?
ETFs segregate their assets from the management company, so we would see little management company risk. That being said, last year, Emerge Canada managed to screw things up badly. Money was returned to unitholders but there were delays. But we would see the risk to be minimal with the ETFs noted. The main risk is interest rates. Yields will decline with rates. A massive financial crisis (like 2008) could result in some delays in some payments, but CBIL and HISA invest in short term high quality securites/accounts, and not commercial paper which did see some issues in 2008 in the US. Overall, for the time frame noted, while not guaranteed in the technical sense, we would be extremely comfortable buying these ETFs. No real preference as they are essentially equivalent.