Along with, it seems, just about every other accountant here in Ontario (one of Canada’s thirteen provinces/territories), I was surprised by an email that popped up last Tuesday afternoon, titled “A new approach for CPA Ontario.” Here’s the main content:

• As the regulatory body responsible for overseeing Chartered Professional Accountants and accounting firms in Ontario, it is our role to protect the public, ensure our more than 100,000 members and 20,000 students meet the highest standards of expertise, and advance the profession by staying ahead of global economic and technological trends.
  
  Ontario’s economy is unique in Canada. It is home to Canada’s capital markets, one of the largest information technology and innovation clusters in North America, as well as robust manufacturing industries. This size and complexity, and the critical role that CPAs play in safeguarding it, demands responsive, streamlined and efficient management of our professional body.
  
  That’s why, following thoughtful consideration by the CPA Ontario Council and discussions with other provincial and territorial CPA bodies, as well as with CPA Canada, CPA Ontario has provided notice that it intends to conclude its current arrangement with CPA Canada and align on new working relationships. This decision will enable CPA Ontario to better protect the public, serve our members and students, and advance the profession by being more nimble and innovative.

For background as to what that means, as helpfully summarized by the Canadian Press, “CPA Canada was created in 2013 to unify the various professional accounting organizations across the country. (The) provincial organizations are regulators and enforcers of the profession, while the national organization is responsible for standards and co-ordinates education and the common exam written by all would-be CPAs, among other roles.”

Anticipated benefits of the split, per the email, are to include “a significant cost reduction reflected in your annual membership dues, which currently includes both CPA Ontario and CPA Canada’s fee.” But that aside, the announcement provides little coherent explanation. The subtext seems to be that CPA Ontario judges CPA Canada not to be sufficiently responsive, nimble, innovative, and so on (or put another way, not to be of much use at all), but reaching for the canard about Ontario’s uniqueness suggests an element of pure power play (Ontario’s major player status within Canada should surely make its interests more aligned with those of the national body rather than less, if anyone’s are); one might wonder whether this isn’t the opening salvo in an attempt to bring down CPA Canada altogether. Especially as the provincial Quebec body made a similar announcement on the same day, citing much the same factors (right down to the uniqueness).

Canadian Accountant cited various factors that might have contributed to the breakdown:

• The high-profile breakdown of the national online accounting exam in 2019 embarrassed the profession and symbolized a technology deficit in delivery and training. And the brief tenure of former CPA Canada head Charles-Antoine St-Jean surprised the profession. 
• As reported by Canadian Accountant, the new Canadian Sustainability Standards Board is expected to cost about $10 million, in addition to the costs of the legacy standard-setting bodies, which in the past was paid for through membership fees. Sustainability standards have been largely driven by CPA Canada, whose national initiatives have overshadowed the provincial bodies, including CPA Ontario, which had a legacy history of substantial influence. 
• Similarly, anticipated changes to the CPA program — the education program for future accountants — has concerned members. According to CPA program coach Gevorg Grigoryan, the new Competency Map 2.0 may “gut” the program of electives and the national accounting exam. Legacy chartered accountants still resentful of unification see the future direction of the program as a further watering down of standards and their reputations. 

CPA Canada, whose CEO admitted to also being surprised by the announcement, was left scrambling, issuing an anodyne statement about “(remaining)  committed to constructive dialogue and finding a mutually beneficial resolution that addresses the concerns of all parties involved.” Whatever the underlying issues (and a follow-up email on Thursday afternoon, titled “Answering Your Questions,” mostly failed to), it seems to me that the provincial bodies should be criticized for announcing a move of such complex implications in a vague and high-handed manner, as if CPA Ontario and Quebec were grudge-driven personal fiefdoms rather than representatives of intelligent and diverse professionals (am I the only one who sees various Brexit parallels here?). The notion that there could or should be an organization called “CPA Ontario” which might in future have little or nothing to do with an organization called “CPA Canada” doesn’t seem likely to do much to address accountancy’s current positioning and branding issues. At the same time, while I’d hesitate to concur with the commentator who suggested that “CPA Canada seems more concerned with virtue signaling than actual accounting,” the point about the $10 million cost of the CSSB may suggest an overly heavy national infrastructure that’s become inadequately tethered to the average member’s concerns and imperatives. But based on what we know to date (which isn’t anywhere near as much as we should), the main achievement this week was to flaunt a retrogressive dysfunction highly at odds with (as CPA Ontario’s website puts it) “(enabling) CPAs to lead business and society forward…”  

The opinions expressed are solely those of the author.