Chapter 4: A Profession Adapts: 1945 to 1951
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In the late summer of 1945 Canadians began to come home from the global theatres of war that had so absorbed national attention since September of 1939. Western societies tend to approach war as an interruption in the normal flow of life, so most people in the belligerent states sought to recall and reconstruct their pre-1939 lives. But this was a fantasy. The war had irrevocably changed the world. Before 1939, Europe had been the centre of the global economy. Now much of Europe's industry lay in ruins, its agriculture lay fallow, its transportation systems were shattered, its trade but a shadow, its credit depleted. The United States had by default, as well as intrinsic wealth, become the world's economic superpower.
Beyond such economic changes, whole populations had been displaced. Some countries in Europe were under Russian control, others relied on American financial and military support to survive. Germany and Japan had for the moment vanished as international actors. Great Britain and France were exhausted. These profound changes meant that, in 1945, no society could simply put down its weapons and return to the ways of peace.
For Canadian businessmen, old markets had evaporated and new ones had materialized. Canada's economy had to shift focus from war production to production and services for civilian consumption. Canada also braced to absorb the tens of thousands of servicemen flocking home to re-enter civilian lives and careers. British prostration accelerated the prewar Canadian-American economic trend of increased interaction.
The CGA Association emerged from the war with an enhanced status and confident about the future. As 1945 ended, 1,253 CGAs from across Canada were on the rolls. The Association had branches with thriving and active memberships in Halifax, Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, and Vancouver. The struggle with other accounting organizations for identity remained a constant theme, but the Association had proven its ability to hold its own. National and local directors now had political experience from dealing with both federal and provincial legislatures. The CGA education and certification programs functioned smoothly and produced good graduates who found employment in many areas.
Most important, CGAs performed successfully in all types of commercial and industrial enterprises, as well as in public practice and government service. As Canada's economy expanded and diversified in the postwar era, CGAs sought more recruits to serve growing markets. At the same time, the pre-1945 drift toward a decentralized structure intensified as local branches in various provinces combined and pursued provincial incorporation.
Quebec provided the first scene of action. The movement for provincial incorporation had two starting points. Within the CGAs, in May 1945, Ludger-Paul Duchaine, president of the Quebec City branch, defined a problem. The expanding economy had generated such a demand for accountants that ill-qualified, incompetent, or even fraudulent accountants might acquire positions of trust and discredit the profession. In addition, different accounting groups boasted so many different titles that the public had become confused. This was not a new problem for any recognized accounting body. But Maurice Duplessis' Union Nationale government moved on its own to alter the structure of accounting in the province; CGAs worried about the implications of the impending legislative reform for their status.
Quebec members urged the Association to strike a special committee to meet with provincial CAs, CPAs, and Licentiates of the Institute of Auditors about the Duplessis government's proposed amalgamation of all accounting groups into a single body. Forced amalgamation threatened the Association's powers in Quebec because "all rights and privileges of the Dominion Association in the Province of Quebec will have to be surrendered to the new organization." If accounting bodies in Quebec merged, as seemed likely, CGAs could vanish in that province. Provincial incorporation might prove the best defence against this menace to the CGA identity in Quebec. The federal charter clearly could not protect the provincial branches in such circumstances.
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