Chapter 6: Epilogue: 1983 and Beyond
Page 1
Many contemporary executives in government and private business have an educational background in professional accounting. CAs and CGAs have become virtually interchangeable, as advertisements in the Globe & Mail suggest. In this respect, the old walls have come down. The threefold rise in personal savings since 1960 to $31.8 million, coupled with an increasingly complex tax system, have transformed CGAs into financial advisors to the middle classes as well as servants in public and private financial bureaucracies. The changes in private practice have forced firms to acquire a stable of professionals with different designations to provide services in tax and investment counselling, financial and corporate management, and executive search. In addition to sharing in these developments, the Association accommodated two other major changes that, when combined with their broadening clientele, suggest the future of CGA-Canada.
Towards the end of 1968 external developments persuaded the Board to generate an embryo foreign policy. CGAs in the Caribbean had applied for membership in Canadian branches, mainly New Brunswick's, since the 1930s. In 1964, the national Board agreed that residents of the British West Indies, Bermuda, and Nassau could enrol in the Association's program, managed by the Maritime Institute in Halifax, provided they met CGA standards and could locate a provincial association in Canada willing to act as a sponsor. Thus began the Offshore Service Division of the Association that has enrolled several thousand students and many hundreds of certified graduates from both the Caribbean and elsewhere.
As with all major CGA policy decisions, the Board modified details as new conditions arose. The directors knew that they marketed not only courses, examinations, and evaluations, but their professional respectability as well. The Association therefore helped these offshore CGAs organize themselves in their own country. The Association sent experienced CGAs as advisors, but insisted that the Offshore operation be self-supporting. Once a group formed, as in Barbados, which has been the most successful offshore venture, CGA-Canada affiliated with them to continue the link.
Canada's national interest in the Caribbean lay behind this development. Canadian banks have operated in the Caribbean for many years, as have many Canadian companies. Taking advantage of Commonwealth links or refugee programs, Caribbean people have moved to Canada, temporarily or permanently, for education or work. And in the postwar period, Canada has extended considerable foreign aid to the Caribbean, thus providing another connecting thread.
The Association's foreign policy in the Caribbean showed modest gains over time. In the Bahamas, American competition was strong because of proximity. Some Bahamians studied for accounting qualification in Florida and other southern states rather than enter the welcoming, but distant, Canadian program. Currently, the CGAs control the only recognized accounting education program in the region. CGA flexibility suits a scattered and mobile student body and membership because of the correspondence tradition in education. Conscious of nurturing the link, in 1983-84 Board members from Canada visited the Caribbean to consult with local CGAs. Within the region, CGAs have local branches in Bermuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago.
In the 1980s, the rise of the Pacific Rim concept opened another portfolio for the Association's foreign policy. Vancouver had developed links with the Orient through the Empress steamships that plied Pacific waters to British possessions in eastern Asia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The rakish and romantic Empress ships passed into history, and the British Empire faded. But the Commonwealth ties with Hong Kong and other Far Eastern cities remained. Many Hong Kong students have come to such Canadian universities as Vancouver's UBC and Concordia, in Montreal. And Canadians in turn have laboured to expand trade with Pacific Rim countries. CGA-Canada formed links with the New Zealand and Australian societies of accountants, which provided much useful information when the Association's 1983 Task Force tried to project the CGA of the future.
Continued...
|