I passed the level 2 this June and just got my CMA entrance exam results passed with relative ease.I start the 2 year SLP from Jan 2014 and then when its all done ill have CPA CMA CFA besides my name…That adds some neat credibilty
I have a passion for teaching i hope getting the designations will help me teach accounting and finance in colleges and univesrities since at the moment i only have a lousy bachelors.
No, I’m talking all three designations will be merged in Canada.New CPA’s will have no ranking order to them. And CGA did not refuse to merge in Quebec, Alberta or BC. Ontario will come along soon anyway, they have no choice. The majority of CGAs in Canada will be CPA’s very soon if they aren’t already.
There will be CPA and that is it, that is all.
Greenman - It’s possible, but does the CMA (US) call their program the Strategic Leadership Program (SLP)? That’s why I thought Canada… because that’s what we call it here.
Actually, a lot of my friends work in canada as accountants, they are saying the designations are slowly merging, the details i don’t know, but for majority of the country, they are merging.
What i don’t understand is that, why would people care about the ranking among these designations. If you have gotten your designation some time ago, isn’t it true that your work experience does the talking for you and not your designation? I mean, if you prove you can do accounting in your work history, it doesn’t really matter does it?
In Canada, your designation is a really big deal… forever. It’s silly, but it’s something I’ve noticed in nearly all firms. CAs hire CAs, CMAs hire CMAs… it’s ridiculous.
It is really sad and it’s a reason I stayed away from that route. Under the old system, there really wasn’t much purpose to being an accountant unless you were a CA that worked for nearly free for a Big4 for 3-4 years. I didn’t want to sell myself out like that. So I moved towards the finance side of things.
Even still, with the corporate I’m with I needed a designation before I could be promoted. It didn’t matter how much value I added or how strong my performance was, it was a fundamental requirement prior to promotion.
I’m not sure the impact of the merger will be that quick. The big egos in the CA camp (I don’t necessarily blame them) have convinced the new CPA body to have a 10 year phase in period where people will have BOTH designations (I kid you not). So if you were an old CGA, you need to use your new designation as Billy Smith, CPA-CGA. Ridiculous, I know. And you can see the relucance of some designations to join in such a demeaning fashion (such as the Ontario CGA’s mentioned before… though they have rejoined discussions now that the critical mass is working against them).
Canada is a bizarre country with a combination of US style values and old world UK style values. I’m guess the status concept behind the various designations is one of those leftover British values
I think people adapt to change waaay quicker than you think these days.
in the last 5 years, people change their lifestyles more drastically than any other period. think about it, Microsoft had the opportunity to come out with tablets 10 years ago and they didn’t, and ipad came out in 2010 (?) and now people are all switching over to tablet - in fact, most people use them now at home instead of laptops?
people always fear for change, but when it happens, it goes usually relatively smoothly, and turns out people aren’t affected by it as much as they think.
I just think it was right time for me to jump into the accounting designation field i took the easiest route CMA and will end up being CPA CMA and after 10 years just a CPA (Chartered Professional Accountant). It will cost me though about $15000 at the end still better then a $45k MFIn or $100k MBA.
Gotcha. I don’t know what province you’re in, but in Alberta you can already start rolling in the CPA program. Then you don’t need to worry about the qualifier on your designation. I’m sure that’s the case in Quebec and BC as well. Ontario has been a bit of a laggard.
