Profile of Bill Burnes, CGA

William (Bill) Burnes, CGA, began life in New Liskeard, Ontario, on June 3, 1925. The Burnes family had moved to Timmins, Ontario, where his father was employed as the office manager/accountant by Hill-Clark-Francis Limited, a major contractor and a lumber and building supplies dealer. Bill graduated from Timmins High and Vocational School in 1944. He attended the University of Western Ontario and graduated in 1948 with a degree in business administration and economics.

G.N. Ross, an accountant in Timmins, offered Bill a job as a student accountant at a starting salary of $80 per month. (As an aside: Inflation was not rampant at this time because eleven years later, in 1959, I went to work for G.N. Ross’s firm, then called Ross, Pope & Co., at a starting salary of $90 a month. Thank God peanut butter was cheap!)

Bill married his wife, Doris, on October 9, 1948, and since he felt that he could not support his wife on $80 a month, he declined the offer and returned to London, Ontario, where he worked for Canada Packers in shipping and then in the office where worked as a cashier and was in charge of incoming charges. As the lumber and building supply business was in his family’s background, Bill spent several years in this field, first with Gilchrist Lumber and then with Clatworthy Lumber until 1956.

It was during his time in the lumber business that Bill began the CGA program of studies. He remembers that he started with the International Accounting Society that prepared him for the certified general accountant’s course. T.H. Frankling was the CGA Ontario’s registrar at this time and ran the courses out of Toronto. For his intermediate exams, Bill remembers that he and a gentleman by the name of Jim Carroll, who was employed by Revenue Canada Taxation—now the Canada Revenue Agency—and spent most weekdays on the road, would study together on the weekends.

From 1956 to 1962, Bill was employed by the CRA in the Sudbury office. In 1960, he began working to organize CGA Ontario Sudbury Chapter, and served as the first chapter chair and was the secretary in 1961-62. According to Bill, the Sudbury Chapter began with five to 10 members, mainly employed by the CRA. The chapter now has approximately 200 CGAs and 80 students in its membership.

In addition, Bill also served on CGA Ontario’s board of governors from 1961 to 1967. During this time, he remembers being chair of the bylaws committee for at least one year. Serving on the board at the same time was Sam Goldmaker, CGA and Harold Garland, FCGA, of Ottawa Chapter (refer to the article by Lana Legostaeva, CGA, for their stories).

In 1962, Bill began a new career in high school teaching. He taught at Nickel District Collegiate for two years, then at Lively High School where he developed the business and commerce course. In 1968, he moved to Kirkland Lake, Ontario, where he taught at Kirkland Lake Collegiate & Vocational Institute until he retired in 1982.

After retiring, Bill and Doris built a house on Twin Lakes, outside of New Liskeard, Ontario. When Bill’s parents died, he and Doris sold their house on Twin Lakes and moved into his parents’ house in New Liskeard. After a varied career and numerous moves, Bill had finally returned to the town of his birth.

Since retiring, Bill has been very involved with the Masonic Lodge and the United Church, serving in various offices at the local, provincial, and national levels.

After his move to Kirkland Lake, Bill transferred to North Bay Chapter which presently holds its October Board meetings in New Liskeard, as this area contains our second heaviest concentration of C.G.A.’s, and Bill has been attending these meetings faithfully. Over the years, he has helped me out occasionally by invigilating at the New Liskeard Exam Centre.

Bill has enjoyed his career as a CGA, in business, in taxation and especially as a teacher where you measure your success by the success of your students. One of Bill’s students in Kirkland Lake, Lois Smith, obtained her CGA designation in 1987, and is currently a member of North Bay Chapter.

As many of us know, nightly lesson preparations and weekend study hours certainly put a strain on family life, but through hard work, perseverance, and understanding (on Doris’ part), Bill will shortly celebrate 50 years as a certified general accountant and he and Doris will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary in 2008.

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