Ethics for Accountants

Overview:

In this 4-hour course we’ll cover all the basics regarding ethics for accountants. It’s a completely updated 2025 version of my prior course of the same name.

We’ll review the oversight and disciplinary process, as well as the Code of Conduct for CPA Ontario, BC and Alberta. 

It also has new actual disciplinary cases, as well as sections on the Bernie Madoff and the QuadrigaCX cryptocurrency platform frauds.

And we’ll conduct a deep dive into violations by rule of professional conduct for the province of Ontario as well as the cases for BC and Alberta. I’ll show you what the top seven broken rules have been in Ontario since 1987 from a summary I’ve created by downloading all 1,037 discipline cases since then. We’ll see that these seven rules account for almost 90% of all discipline cases. 

And we’ll go through more than a dozen recent stories of CPAs who have broken the rules including what led them to do it, as well as the reasons why they received the sanctions they did. This will include a million dollar case of personal income tax and GST fraud, a CFO who swindled the insurance company she worked for of over $3 million, a CPA who withheld funds from  a client because they made a complaint, and a CPA who miserably failed a practice inspection.

This course has been created to give you a good understanding of what the rules are, what is, and what is not, acceptable behaviour and therefore arm you with the information you’ll need to stay within the rules.

Learning Objectives:

Upon completing this course, you should be able to:

• Learn about the oversight and disciplinary process for CPA Ontario, BC and Alberta
• Discover the layout and content of the Code of Conduct for Ontario, BC and Alberta
• Get copies of the most recent Codes of Conduct for Ontario, BC and Alberta
• Discover the top seven broken rules of Ontario’s Code of Conduct that account for 90% of the disciplinary cases since 1987
• Hear more than a dozen detailed stories of actual discipline cases in Ontario, BC and Alberta including the circumstances that lead the CPAs to do what they did and the sanctions imposed on them as a result
• Learn all about the Bernie Madoff fraud including a look at his last audited financial statements
• Discover the real story behind the QuadrigaCX cryptocurrency platform fraud
• Includes 7 key recommendations to keep you out of trouble
• Leave with a full understanding of what is and what is not acceptable behaviour so you can stay on side of the rules

Who Will Benefit: 

CPAs wishing to learn all about the ethical rules they must conform to and satisfy their 4-hour ethics requirement.