Summary

Keywords

Law of professions — Accountants — Administrative law — Appeals — Standard of review –— Who the attestor is to verify whether a candidate student’s working experience is at professional level or not — Why Chartered Professional Accountants of Alberta (CPA Alberta) passes the verification and attestation power to the employers under the situation that CPA Alberta does not trust CPA employer’s attestation — Whether CPA Alberta has rules and procedures to check whether CPA employer’s attestation is true or false and ensure that all the employers’ attestations are true — Why other CPA’s review results are more trustable than that of the applicant’s four CPA employers — How the other six CPAs review results can turn over the applicant’s four CPA employers’ attestation — Whether candidate students’ employers are the right party to attest candidates’ working experience — The motivation for employers to verify and attest their candidate employees’ working experience — The kind of standard of review which should be used to review administrative decisions — Who is eligible to attest candidate students’ working experience and the rules and procedures to determine whether a candidate student’s working experience is at professional level or not — Whether there are any mistakes in the current attestation rules and procedures for some people to take advantage for their personal benefit and which sacrifice the interest of Canadians at large — Who has the rights to supervise CPA Alberta’s administrative decisions regarding who is qualified for CPA certificates

Summary

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

In 2018, the Registrar of the respondent Chartered Professional Accountants of Alberta wrote to the applicant Ms. Sun advising her that her registration as a Certified General Accountant candidate was cancelled. The letter explained that Ms. Sun has failed to complete the practical experience requirements of her program by the deadline set out in new legislation. Ms. Sun appealed the decision of the Registrar to the Appeal Tribunal.

The Appeal Tribunal indicated that the Registrar’s decision should be assessed using the reasonableness standard of review. In the Tribunal’s view, the Registrar’s decision was reasonable. No errors in the assessments of Ms. Sun’s experience could be identified. The Registrar’s decision was confirmed and the appeal was dismissed. Ms. Sun appealed this decision, and in response, Chartered Professional Accountants of Alberta applied for a summary dismissal of the appeal on the basis that the Court of Appeal did not have jurisdiction. The Court of Appeal granted the application to dismiss.

Lower Court Rulings