Chapter 3: A Profession Evolves: 1921 to 1945
Canada strode into 1919 with an enhanced sense of national pride and independence which compensated for the terrible human loss and social and economic dislocation of World War I. This nationalism found an international expression when Canada refused to follow automatically the British lead in foreign relations by standing aside in the Chanak Crisis in the late summer of 1922. Canada also achieved separate status at both the Versailles Conference of 1919 and the League of Nations.
At the same time, Canada's economy began a reorientation. The links with Britain began to fray and break; the links with the United States began to multiply and strengthen. American culture, tastes, capital, markets, and commercial methods became increasingly significant for Canadian businessmen. The 1920s were a watershed for Canada's career as an international and North American power.
The economy suffered adjustments as the war closed, but it also developed greater strength by virtue of diversification. By 1925 the postwar depression had ended and a period of growth raised the Gross National Product twenty-one percent over the next five years. Industrial and service sectors grew alongside Canada's traditional agricultural and commercial foundations. Export markets expanded, especially to the United States. By 1929, lacking an adequate labour pool, Canada advertised for immigrants, labour unions gained members and developed their own bureaucracies to handle finances and negotiations. Social and political protest in the west, manifest in the Progressive Party and later the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, forced the traditional I .iberal and Tory parties toward the concept of the welfare state during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
These trends produced a lively market for trained accountants with expertise in commerce, industry, or public practice. Various accounting-related organizations and associations had come and gone as the Association began its ninth year. The members, who numbered just over one hundred, still worked mostly in Montreal and represented a cross-section of the city's business concerns. But national representation was increasing and new applications for membership arrived almost daily at Association headquarters. Conditions, such as Canada's growth and urbanization, the distribution of practicing and aspiring CGAs, and Canada's federal structure, favoured the first of many phases of expansion. And, the organization's affairs became too complex for centralized control.
Branches began to appear. On November 28, 1921, the first provincial body of the Association formed in Toronto with thirty-five members. Montreal itself acquired the next branch, on May 15, 1922, partly to separate the conduct of local from national affairs. The Dominion Board henceforth concentrated on broad issues. The Montreal branch, nearly one hundred strong by early 1923, constituted almost half of the Association's total enrollment. This size reflected Montreal's continued significance in Canada's industrial, financial, and commercial life. In 1924, CGA members in Saskatchewan attempted to organize. But the provincial CAs convinced them to form a social, instead of a professional, organization. None of these developments threatened the Association, which had demonstrated its ability to sustain a demanding certification program.
The choke point for CGAs remained the examinations. In 1922, the Association began paying the Board of Examiners. Victor Dor6 (LA) of Montreal received $150 for setting and correcting both intermediate and final level tests that year. As branches multiplied and grew individually, they assumed a greater role in the education process. They organized study groups and developed branch libraries into resource centres. Examinations remained national, but could be written locally under branch supervision. And students could choose beyond the Shaw Business College for preparatory instruction. Several other commercial institutions, such as the International Correspondence Schools, offered accounting and commercial courses acceptable to the Association. To help students, in 1924 the Association reprinted old examinations and sold them at seventy-five cents a copy through the branches. This procedure evolved into the printing of an annual examination booklet as a study guide.
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