CPAB’s Role and the Future of Auditing
in Canada
By Brian Hunt, FCPA, FCA, ICD.D
Note to readers: The following is based on a speech Brian Hunt presented at the Accounting
Educators’ Symposium in May 2015.
T
he audit industry and the professionals in it will experience more change in the next
five to 10 years than they have in the last 50. We are on the verge of a transformation
in the way audits are performed, and in the skills required to perform them.
We must ask ourselves if we’re ready for that future. Then the follow-up question is: What role
will academics and educators have in helping with this transformation? And are we identifying
the right competencies that will mould our next leaders right now?
Established as Canada’s audit regulator in 2003, the Canadian Public Accountability Board (CPAB)
is here to protect the investing public and help enhance confidence and stability in Canada’s
capital markets. We work to ensure that quality audits are delivered on a consistent basis.
We’ve already come a long way. Audit quality in Canada has improved over the past 12 years,
and we believe CPAB has been instrumental in this advancement. However, the audit industry is
changing and will continue to do so, and we predict that there will be a shift in how audit work is
delivered and in the skills and training that will be required to adapt to these changes. Many of the
changes will improve audit quality; others, if not managed properly, could have a negative impact.
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28 CPABC in Focus • Sept/Oct 2015
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The accounting and auditing profession is
not known to evolve rapidly—in many ways,
we operate in 2015 just like we did in 1965—
but there are some transformative changes on
the way that could have a huge impact on the
industry. Among them: the increasing mentality that the audit process is a “commodity,”
where price is the biggest factor in determining the hiring of one firm over ano \