Accounting Designations Page is Up

I finished updating the 'Accounting Designations' page of this site.  I tried to give a personal perspective on the three types of designations that are out there for you.

I have to point out though that there are a lot of changes happening these days.  Let me repeat that: there are a lot of changes happening these days! 

Prior to 2012, there were three distinct accounting bodies: CAs, CMAs, and CGAs.  CPAs did not exist.  However, a process called 'unification' started to take place with the goal of merging these three accounting bodies.  The goal of this merge was to have only one accounting body in Canada, rather than the current three.  All accountants would then be called Certified Professional Accountants.

This so called 'unification' was in fact successful in some provinces, where the bodies were merged to become one.  However, in Ontario, only the CA body decided to go ahead with the merge and therefore all CAs started to be called CPAs.  CMAs and CGAs, on the other hand, decided not to go ahead with this merge and that is why we still have three accounting bodies here in Canada.

Hopefully this clarified things a bit.  Just remember - things in the profession always change, and that's not necessarily a bad thing!