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The Independent Voice for Canada’s Accounting and Financial Professionals
www.thebottomlinenews.ca
Vol. 27 No. 8
July 2011
Two out of three
in on merger talks
The Independent Voice for Canada’s Accounting and Financial Professionals See CGAs on page 29
By JEFF BUCKSTEIN
The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants and Certified Management
Accountants of Canada are in discussions that could lead to an historic merger between their two
organizations — one that would
irrevocably change the Canadian
accounting landscape.
Members of the 13 CICA provincial and territorial affiliates,
along with Bermuda, have until
September to comment on the preliminary merger proposal. If there
is broad support to continue discussions, the next step will be to
shape a concrete proposal to take
back to members for their consideration and support, says Dancey.
However the other major entity
on the national accounting land-
scape, the Certified General
Accountants of Canada, was in on
the initial merger discussions but is
now on the outside looking in. And
the two groups still in talks have a
different take on how that unfolded
than the one put forward by CGA-
A similar arrangement has been
undertaken with CMA Canada and
its affiliates.
CGA-Canada was initially
involved in merger discussions, but
is now on the sidelines. The leaders
of Canada’s major accounting
bodies offer conflicting accounts
Canada.
Federal Auditor General Sheila Fraser, 60, stepped down from the position she held for a decade on May
31. In a wide-ranging interview with The Bottom Line she reflected on her work and some challenges
facing the nation in the future.
Fraser leaves federal stage
The CICA and CMA Canada
have been in merger negotiations
before; it happened most recently
in 2004 when a completed plan
was drawn up and presented to
their respective memberships, but
it ultimately proved unsuccessful.
Unlike those earlier merger discussions, this time the membership is
expected to have a major say in the
final details of any arrangement,
emphasize the participants.
SEPTEMBER
PAYROLL & HUMAN RESOURCES
PUBLICATIONS AGREEMEN T NO. 40065517
MID-SEPTEMBER
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See No on page 31
“We thought that rather than
spending a lot of time behind
closed doors working out a whole
bunch of details, this time it would
probably be better to go to members early and engage them,” says
Kevin Dancey, the Toronto-based
president and chief executive
officer of the CICA. “There are
lots of issues affecting this profession. We think it’s important to get
members’ viewpoints on what
those issues are and take those into
account in shaping the way forward.”
AUGUST
ACCOUNTING PUBLICATIONS
By JEFF BUCKSTEIN
Ottawa
Sheila Fraser, arguably the most popular auditor general in Canadian history, says the
past decade has been the highlight
of a professional accounting career
stretching over nearly 40 years.
“It’s been an amazing, won-
derful experience — the high point
of my career,” Fraser, a 60-year old
chartered accountant, told The
Bottom Line. “It’s really been a
privilege to serve as auditor gen-
eral. I have been fortunate to work
with very capable people who are
very dedicated to what they do,
and we like to think we’ve made a
small difference in administra-
tion,” she said in an interview at
her Ottawa office.
640 members, to new heights of
public awareness.
In a recently published report
documenting her decade in office,
entitled Serving Parliament
through a Decade of Change,
Fraser mentioned that the 2003
sponsorship audit, which involved
the deliberate misuse of public
funds, “was a pivotal event with a
lasting impact both inside our
office and beyond.”
However, she also emphasized
that “those actions were far from
typical of a public service that, in
my experience, serves Canadians
well.”
