Community News - Frustration with CPA Ontario over Professional Development Events organized by Local Chapters

For the past 8 years, I have organized the annual tax update for the Ottawa CPA Ontario Association (“CPA Ottawa”), which is Ottawa’s local chapter of CPA Ontario. I am a tax lawyer, not a CPA. But I have enjoyed working with other volunteers to steadily increase attendance at the event from about 40 people in 2016 to 288 people in 2023, with CPAs attending the now-virtual event from across the province.

This year, however, CPA Ontario is forcing its local chapters to increase the price of their professional development (“PD”) seminars and is only allowing Ontario CPAs to register for the events hosted by the chapter where they live. Unsurprisingly, registration for CPA Ottawa’s tax updated 2024 on March 5th is significantly down from last year.

CPA Ontario has not demonstrated that Ontario’s CPAs want these changes or explained how they will benefit their members. I also worry that CPA Ontario’s dealings with its local chapters regarding PD events is a microcosm of how it has been dealing with CPA Canada, leading to the upcoming split.

Protecting the Market on PD Seminars

If CPA Ontario is going to force us to raise our prices so that they can earn more revenue from their own PD events, they should at least explain how they will use the additional money to the benefit of Ontario’s CPAs.

CPA Ontario required us to increase the ticket-price of our 2024 tax update from $25 to $67.50. Our event is certainly worth this higher price, but our purpose has always been to provide as many CPAs as possible with important tax information ahead of tax season. Because the event is now virtual and therefore cheap to execute, we were able to run the event at a surplus last year, despite only charging $25 per ticket. So, we had no reason to increase the price.

CPA Ontario will not profit directly from the price increase because local chapters do not have to remit their profits to the provincial body. But Peter Lee, CPA Ontario’s Director of Member and Student Experience, acknowledged in a meeting with me that the price increase was partially to protect CPA Ontario’s own tax update, which is available to CPAs across the province and is 7-hours long at a cost of $585 per member. That is 9 times more expensive than even the new cost of our tax update.

I am not an economist, but my understanding of the free market is that open competition between services, like PD seminars, causes the consumer to get the best product possible at the best price. Controlling prices hinders this positive effect.  

But Mr. Lee could not explain why CPA Ontario was prioritizing earning additional revenue from PD seminars over the quality of PD that its members could access. Nor could he explain why CPA Ontario needed additional revenue beyond the dues it collects from members, or how it would use the extra revenue to make things better for CPAs in Ontario.

I found Mr. Lee to be intelligent and thoughtful, and I was grateful for him taking the time to meet with me. Also, he explained that CPA Ontario’s PD team is separate from the Member and Student Experience team that he leads, so some of my questions were outside his domain. But this information seems so fundamental to CPA Ontario’s strategy for dealing with its members that it should have been proactively communicated to Ontario’s CPAs and the people who volunteer for their local chapters.

Building Walls around Local Chapters

CPA Ontario will also be vetting the registration list of our tax update and de-registering (with a refund) any CPA who does not live in the Ottawa region. To make it painfully clear, they changed the event’s name on their portal to “Ottawa Association Members Only: Tax Update 2024”.

One CPA from Kawartha Lakes wrote to me saying “I do not even know how to find events for my area anymore!” A CPA from Trenton wrote, “Is there a reason that CPA Ontario is limiting this event? Is there anything we can do to change that?”

According to Mr. Lee, the answer is no. He says that local chapters were originally intended to be for networking, not for offering PD, especially through virtual events. If we were just offering in-person networking events, there would not even be an opportunity for non-locals to attend. He said that, by offering more than networking events, local chapters were not being “compliant”.

This is the first I have heard of a networking-only mandate and his talk of “compliance” feels big brothery to me. It is also inconsistent with what CPA Ottawa members have shown they want from their local chapter. In 2018, CPA Ottawa organized an escape room event that saw only seven people show-up. CPA Ottawa also tried to organize an event at a Redblacks game, but interest was so low that it did not proceed. Compared to the attendance at our tax updates and other professional development events, the message has been loud and clear.

Either CPA Ontario does not know its members prefer PD, does not care, or just wants to corner the market on revenue from PD. None of these scenarios sit well with me.

CPA Ontario’s dealings with CPA Canada

Since I am not a CPA, I am not well informed on the dispute between CPA Ontario and CPA Canada. I do know, however, that the assertions made by CPA Ontario against CPA Canada are serious, and CPA Quebec also leaving the federation lends credence to their complaints. CPA Canada needs to address these concerns and communicate their changes to their members across the country.

My dealings with CPA Ontario on our tax update, however, make me wonder if the split is not party caused by CPA Ontario approaching its relationship with CPA Canada the same way it has approached its relationship with its own local chapters. Is CPA Ontario treating its allies as competitors? Are they putting up walls where they should be building bridges? Are they failing to adhere to the preferences of their members?

Organizing CPA Ottawa’s tax update over the past 8 years has led me to meet great people and learn a lot about event planning. I am proud of the quality of the content that we provide and how popular the event has become in Ottawa and beyond. I hope that, moving forward, CPA Ontario will focus on the benefits we are providing to our shared membership, instead of what we might be indirectly taking away from the provincial body.