NEWS
2
The Bottom Line December 2011
Stateside comments cause ripples in Canada
JEFF BUCKSTEIN
n online U.S. accounting
publication has retracted
the lead paragraph of an
article that had caused a stir
among Canadian accounting professionals when it suggested that
an American-style CPA designation was heading north of the
border.
Accounting Today.com had
asserted that the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) had been holding
discussions with the Canadian
Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) and Certified Management Accountants of Canada
(CMA) about “bringing the CPA
designation up north and combining it with the CA and CMA
designations.”
The lead paragraph was subsequently reworded to state: “The
American Institute of CPAs said
the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants and CMA
Canada are in talks about creating a unique CPA designation
in Canada and combining it with
their CA and CMA designations.”
Another new parag raph
attempted further clarif ication:
“Spokesmen from the CICA and
the AICPA emphasized that the
Canadian move to a CPA designation is entirely a Canadian initiative and does not involve an
ex p a n s i o n o f t h e A I C PA t o
Canada.”
The article also explained that
the Canadian CPA abbreviation
stands for chartered professional
accountant, not certified public
“There’s never been any discussion
about moving to the U.S. CPA,
or certified public accountant.”
A
Joy Thomas, CMA Canada
T homas
accountant as in the United
States. (The article appeared
before the Cer tif ied General
Accountants of Canada reentered merger talks with CMA
and CICA).
Michael Cohn, editor-in-chief
of Accounting Today.com, and
author of the article, confirmed
the original opening paragraph that mentioned bringing
the U.S. CPA designation up
north to combine it with Canadian designations, was amended
to say the AICPA spoke of Canadian merger talks between the
CICA and CMA Canada to
create a Canadian only CPA designation. Leaders of the AICPA, CICA
and CMA Canada all denied there
has ever been discussion about a
common North American designation whereby the American CPA
would be brought into Canada.
“Absolutely not true,” said
AICPA president and chief executive off icer Barry Melancon,
who is based in New York City.
That was reiterated by Joy
Thomas, president and chief
executive off icer of CMA
Canada in Mississauga, Ont.:
“There’s never been any discussion about moving to the U.S.
CPA, or certified public accountant.”
The leaders also addressed a
wide range of other items in the
article, which covered remarks
made by Melancon at AICPA’s
fall meeting in Phoenix, Ariz.
M e l a n c o n wa s q u o t e d i n
Accounting Today as telling delegates: “The world is sort of going
back and forth between the CA
being predominant and CPA
being predominant, with the CPA
nudging ahead today. The Canadians are looking at it and saying:
‘We’re CAs because of our historic ties to the UK, but our economic viability is tied to … the
United States of America and
their CPAs.’ How do we position
the Canadian members of the
profession to function in this
North American economy that’s
evolving?”
In an interview, Melancon
explained: “What I was trying to
com m uni cat e i s t hat , i n t he
United States, clearly, the predominant brand is CPA. I think it
would be harder for a Canadian
CA to get marketplace recognition in the United States with a
CA, because the CA brand is not
known.
“If they have both the CA and
CPA designations, [they can]
come into the U.S. and say ‘I’m a
Canadian CPA.’ American business is going to know what that
is.”
Melancon was asked whether
he thought the anticipated Canadian use of CPA, standing for
chartered professional accountant, should merger talks succeed, impacted on the American
brand CPA, meaning certif ied
public accountant.
He said similar abbreviations
with different meanings are evident throughout the international
accounting profession. In Australia, for instance, CPA stands
for certif ied practising accountant.
Kevin Dancey, Toronto-based
chief executive off icer of the
Canadian Institute of Chartered
A c c o u n t a n t s , s a i d C PA a n d
“chartered professional accountant” were devised as a carefully
thought out strategy to place
Canadian accountants in a strong
international position.
“We want to be aligned with
the global designation of choice.
Having a chartered professional
accountant designation aligns us
with both the CA and CPA designations. We think that’s the right
thing to do,” he said.
The AICPA is also conscious
about its future positioning in the
global accounting community,
Melancon said.
“Our objective is to position
the U.S. CPA to be a premier
accountancy designation in the
world. We believe there will be
more than one premier accountancy designation that will be
highly respected and accepted in
the global marketplace — and
our objective is to make sure the
U.S. CPA is one of those.”
Melancon was also quoted in
Accounting Today as predicting
that Canadian and U.S. accountancy exams will become “if not
exactly the same, at least substantially the same.”
“If I said those exact words,
then I misspoke, because they
wo u l d n eve r b e ex a c t ly t h e
same,” he said in a subsequent
interview.
want all new professionals in
Canada to become credentialized
and carry the brand CPA, which
would stand for ‘chartered professional accountant,’ but we all
know that what the words stand
for versus the letters will probably dissipate very quickly.”
Melancon clarif ied: “I don’t
think I said ‘we want people to
be CPAs.’ ”
He added that he has been following the Canadian merger
talks with interest, but maintains
the AICPA does not have an official position.
“If that’s the decision they
make, we’re certainly going to
work wherever we can to [help].
We’ve done joint projects with
Canada over the years, so we
work well together.”
Speaking to the second part of
that quote, Melancon explained
that he was talking about the
generic recognition of CPA, not
any interpretation of what the
letters stand for.
“If you went to the person on
the street in the U.S., and asked
‘what does CPA stand for,’ the
vast majority would not know
t h a t [ wa s ] c e r t i f i e d p u bl i c
accountant. They would know
that it’s a financial professional,
but the exact words the acronym
stands for — it’s just impossible
for the masses to know all of
those things. They just recognize
“We want to be aligned with
the global designation of choice.
Having a chartered professional
accountant designation aligns us with
both the CA and CPA designations.”
Kevin Dancey, CICA
“You have, for instance, Canadian law and Canadian taxes [and
different] U.S. law and U.S.
taxes. Canada’s in IFRS [International Financial Reporting Standards] and we’re not yet. There
are different auditing standards
today as well.”
Melancon said he was
speaking more in the context of
exam processes, such as computerization.
“We interact with a lot of
people in the accountancy profession around the world to make
sure we are using the best technology and the best thought processes from an exam perspective,
and we certainly have talked to
the CICA for years as to what’s
going on with their exam, and
what’s going on with our exam,
because we learn from each other
with best practices.”
Thomas confirmed that CMA
Canada had talked to the AICPA
about its experience with computerized exams.
Melancon was also quoted in
Accounting Today as saying: “We
the brand CPA in a generic way.”
Melancon also discussed with
AICPA delegates in Phoenix the
potential for a Canadian CPA
designation to lead to enhanced
mobility between borders for
Canadian and U.S. accounting
professionals in future.
“ C o m m e r c e m ove s f r e e ly
across the Canadian and American borders, and therefore professional services are going to
need to be done in a way that
moves with it to some degree.
And so what I was alluding to
[is] that at some point in the
future, we’re going to have discussions about mobility from
state to province,” said.
Dancey agreed: “Mobility is a
very important issue … within
an integrated North American
economy. It is important that our
qualified professionals be mobile
because the clients they serve
and the employers that they work
for do cross jurisdictions. So it is
incumbent upon us to do what we
can to make sure that our professionals are mobile.”