CPA Act
The Ordre des comptables professionnels agréés du Québec is a professional order whose members practice an exclusive profession. The Order supervises chartered professional accountants who, under the Chartered Professional Accountants Act, are qualified to practice as a professional accountant, including in public accountancy.
The practice of the CPA profession
The practice of the profession of chartered professional accountant consists, with respect to the accounting, management, finances or taxation relating to the economic activities and patrimony of a person, enterprise or organization, in
- gathering and organizing financial and non-financial information, analyzing and evaluating it, attesting to its conformity or certifying it, communicating the information and providing advice in relation to it; and
- developing and evaluating policies, procedures, processes and controls related to governance, strategy and risk management, attesting to their conformity or certifying them, implementing them and providing advice in relation to them.
The purpose of these professional activities is to optimize the performance, profit and growth of the patrimony of a person, enterprise or organization, promote good governance or accountability, or increase information reliability.
Within the framework of the profession, the professional activity reserved to the chartered professional accountant is public accountancy. This activity consists in
- expressing an opinion to provide a level of assurance about a financial statement or any part of a financial statement, or about any other information related to the financial statement; this corresponds to an assurance engagement, which comprises the performance of both an audit engagement and a review engagement, as well as the issue of special reports;
- issuing any form of certification, declaration or opinion in respect of information related to a financial statement or to any part of a financial statement, or in respect of the application of specified auditing procedures with respect to financial information, other than financial statements, neither being intended exclusively for internal management purposes; and
- performing a compilation engagement that is not intended exclusively for internal management purposes.
Nothing in the first and second paragraphs affects the rights of members of another professional order in fields recognized by law to be within their competence.