Quote:
Originally Posted by Ducay
As someone in this field; I can tell you that essentially no CA's see it as a good idea, regardless of how close to retirement they are. Every CA worked towards their designation and put in hundreds of times more work and time towards their letters than a CMA/CGA did. The amount of work involved is not even within comparison. If the merger does happen I'd love to have the CMAs/CGAs required to pass some form of qualification exam that doesn't involve multiple choice or group presentations (what a joke) before they can use the CPA designation. Sure, full "merger" of the two wouldn't be for 10 years, but if we're talking the life of a career, that is a pretty big impact if you're going to go from X amount of CA's to 10x as many CPAs in 10 years.
If they merge you can kiss any international reciprocity goodbye. Fat chance in heck that any CA country or CPA country is going to accept a CMA or CGA into their bodies.
Regardless of what Quebec does (they're pretty much insignificant anyways economically), it had better come down to a vote among CICA/ICAA members; at which point it would get quashed like a bug. I can't see Ontario legislating a merger anytime soon (hopefully).
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As much as I hate the merge, there are a few things wrong in your post.
One of the main reasons for the merger is international reciprocity. The CICA wants a designation that is looked upon the same as China, the UK and the USA. They all use CPA. There has been resistance from the CAs on letting the CGAs into the merger because the CGAs have for years tried to get cross border reciprocity with the States and have been rejected twice. By setting up the new designation the way they have, the CPAs of Canada would be in a position to take advantage of the reciprocity with China, UK and USA.
Quebec may be insignificant economically, but they do contain 18,000 of the 78,000 CAs in Canada, which represents 23% of our membership. Ontario has 35,000, representing 45% of the total. It looks to me, from everything I've heard and read, that Quebec is merging in 2012. It wouldn't surprise me if Ontario followed suit, but that would mean 68% of the CAs would be merging. This effectively means all other provinces and territories would have to follow or they would remain on the outside. Can you see any of the maritime or atlantic provinces saying they would stay as the CAs if Quebec and Ontario saying they are merging. This is my biggest fear regarding the merge.
It will come down to a vote. They have stated that all along. The period that just ended was the leaders of the institutes trying to convince membership to vote to merge. They have successfully convinced some, but others, such as you and myself, are firmly against it. I think the merge would weaken the profession by allowing people that aren't qualified in. I think new students will not acquire the training and skills required to be as successfull under the current CA model. If I was leaving university in 2-3 years and had the choice to go to a Big 4 firm or to go to an oil and gas company, there is no debate that I am going to O&G. It's less hours, more money and better benefits and options. As a result my technical would not be as strong and I would not be as prepared for the UFE as I was.