I have zero experience in investing. Have been looking at a TON of online content (too easy to be overwhelmed with info) and feel that the best for me would be to buy and hold rather than trying to "play the market". Looking at the next 5 years, Perhaps the energy sector and gold. Very late start in life for this mainly due to trust and fear issues dealing with investment companies, brokers, banks etc. Looking at Wealthsimple and/or Questtrade for self directed TFSA.
I got to investing late in life myself (basically in my 50's). One good thing we have now are ETFs. If you want the ubiquitous 'recommendation' then any one of the 'EQT' ETFs is a good choice (XEQT, VEQT or ZEQT) these are 100% in equities and hold thousands of stocks.
Any of the 'GRO' ETFs (XGRO, VGRO, ZGRO) hold 80/20 equities to bonds and any of the BAL ETFs (XBAL, VBAL ZBAL) are 50-50 stocks/bonds.
Two of my faves that I also own are XEI and XDIV. More Canadian content and a lot less American holdings.
If you like Canadian banks, then ZEB and RBNK are solid choices (I own the latter). If you want some income, then ZWB uses call options to increase the payout but you tend to lose on capital appreciation because of the calls.
I just sold my CNQ and took the profit. It might still climb, but Canadian energy has a lot of headwinds and constraints so who knows what it will do. I also sold my Keyera and made a nice profit, as well as Pembina Pipelines. They, along with Fortis and EMB are typically decent investments.
NONE of this is advice -- just things you can look at and decide your own level of comfort with investing.