President's notes

UFE RESULTS

The nail biting is over, the results are in. My heartiest congratulations to all the successful writers of the 2000 UFE. You will always remember this as a major hurdle in your life, which has now been cleared. Well done and good on you. Special congratulations to Gold Medal Winner Geoffrey Lowe, Silver Medal Winner Bryce Hamming, and Bronze Medal Winners Jonathan Guballa and Rosie Shaheen. Your results in this tough professional exam are remarkable. To those candidates who were unsuccessful this year, I know you are disappointed. I encourage you to stay with it and give it a shot next year if you can. It's well worth it.

QUALIFICATIONS COMMITTEE

As you may have heard, the education reform process is moving along rapidly at the National level. The CICA's qualifications committee has prepared a very in-depth report constituting a detailed action plan on establishing a new education and training regime in the country (please see Richard Rees' article on this on page 4). I am pleased that the proposals are substantially in alignment with the CA School of Business education format. By the time this issue is released your BC council should have had an opportunity to review and provide commentary to the QC, whose report will then go forward to the CICA for Board approval. Some major features include a totally new examination and evaluation format commencing in 2002. The major hurdles remaining are to ensure a fair, timely and orderly transition for those students currently in the program, which is one of our highest priorities at the moment.

The QC report states one of the benefits of the new program: "The [CA] career path should be attractive to a broader spectrum of high-quality candidates: it can be made user friendly and make optimum use of current technology learning strategies and evaluation methodology. The CA qualification process itself will contribute to the profession's international reputation for high standards and objective evaluation, as well as its reputation for leading and for being on the leading edge". This benefit happens to be the number one objective of the BC council this year. The new qualification process should make achieving it a whole lot easier.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST REPORT

What does TVs Agent 86 have to do with internal controls at a public accounting firm? Well, in the future both may be required to use cones of silence to carry out their business. This, together with Chinese walls and other forms of institutional mechanisms, may be mandated to restrict the flow of confidential information within a CA firm to a "need to know" basis. A recently released conflict of interest task force report, which was conducted under the auspices of the Public Interest and Integrity Committee, has far reaching implications for our member firms across the country. The report recommends changes in the rules of conduct to protect the interests of clients where conflicts of interests or potential conflicts of interest could arise. Comments are now being gathered and directed back to the PIIC. BC members will be asked to vote on the changes at an upcoming AGM.

CIVIL PENALTIES

Throughout the executive tour this fall, I have heard many CAs express their frustration and concern with the civil penalties issue. In addition, I want to thank those members that have taken the time to express their concerns to me in letters and e-mails. I have to say that I share your frustration and irritation that our federal government has chosen to carry through with this legislation.

This month we will be meeting with Doug Wallis, CA, Director of Professional Advisory Services, and Tim Duholke, CA, who is BC's representative on the CICA advisory group to the CCRA on this issue. We hope our consultation team will put some common sense into the administrative guidelines associated with the legislation. One of my highest priorities will be to ensure that all of our members are properly advised as to best practice methods, what others are doing, and how to avoid risk. Next month's For The Profession column will deal with this matter in more detail.

I would like to hear from you. Please e-- mail me at president@ica.bc.ca.

BY CHUCK CHANDLER, FCA, PRESIDENT, CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS OF BC

Copyright Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia Dec 2000
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