About a year ago, the Chairperson of CPA BC wrote to me offering relief from future membership dues in acknowledge of my more than thirty years as a member of the association and one of its legacy members.

I think she was hopeful that I would want to give back to the community, and support future generations. She was right!

Except that, I wanted to support future generations of small businesses and the professionals working hard to support them. I had no interest in supporting yet another professional organization that sought to extend its monopoly, and the dominance of its most influential member firms. I could no longer accept oversight by an organization that claimed competencies that our members don’t really possess.

I did not want to support the 13 separate professional accounting organizations in Canada, that engage relentlessly in jurisdictional squabbles[1], and claim the ethical superiority of their members in a way that would make even Medieval urban guilds blush[2].

Less than a month ago a story emerged in British Columbia about one Canada’s largest CPA firms. I had worked there for two years as a tax specialist before resigning to start my own specialty practice. The firm was accused of administering a provincial government grant program. At the same time it turns out they were charging a ‘success fee’ for successful applicants[3].

Two years earlier, I had complained to my local professional association that the association itself had resorted to overstating median incomes of BC CPAs[4] in a transparent attempt to attract new members. They are not alone. CPA Canada and CPA Ontario are both doing the same thing.

So, I considered her offer and resigned from membership.

[1] CPA Ontario and CPA Quebec have recently withdrawn from our national organization.

[2] “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” —Adam Smith, observation on urban guilds, 1776

[3] Investigation ordered into B.C. clean energy grant process[4] At the time they were claiming $100,000 and the Canada Job Bank was claiming $62,000. Check for yourself now.