Description: Heroes to Zeroes – that’s the message of the sign carried by Gig Workers United’s Brice Sopher during a demonstration by Uber and Lyft drivers at Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square, part of a coordinated Valentine’s Day effort in Canada, America, and the United Kingdom. The workers are looking for better wages and benefits following… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Ethics
“Brazen” Fraud Scheme
Description: Canadian Kyle Tsui pleaded guilty in an American court last week on charges that he had bilked $6 million dollars from approximately 88,000 customers. Tsui’s Allergy Testing Company offered these customers allergy and food sensitivity tests based on a small hair sample. But, as U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said, the company “didn’t even attempt… Read more »
Tricked by a Cereal Box?
Description: Are you a Canadian consumer who has ever felt tricked by a cereal box? Ken Bennett was looking for a high-protein cereal choice, so when he spotted Kellog’s Vector in the cereal aisle with its claims of 13 grams of protein, he dropped a box into his shopping cart. On closer examination at the… Read more »
Not Our Fault; Blame Maple Leaf
Description: Canada Bread has responded to a class action lawsuit centred on alleged price-fixing in the bakery business by essentially saying, “blame it on our former parent company, Maple Leaf Foods.” Michael McCain, a former Maple Leaf CEO, was having no part of this in his statement, saying, “We continue to believe that the pricing… Read more »
Big Fine for Deloitte
Description: In what could be described as somewhat of an embarrassment, Big Four audit firm Deloitte has been fined $1.59 million by CPA Ontario, the governing body for the accounting profession in that province. Deloitte’s problem was that some employees engaged in “deliberate backdating” of audit working papers on close to 40 audits. Somehow the… Read more »
Beware of “Shrinkflation”
Description: Watch out for “shrinkflation,” that practice of producers shrinking package sizes to compensate for increasing costs. Instead of passing on the increasing costs to the end consumers, these companies shrink the box size. Shrinking packaging causes consumers, like Ellyn Newall of Edmonton, to feel duped. After getting her grocery order home, Ellyn realized Post’s… Read more »
Auditing the Auditor?
Description: If you are an auditor general, you’re probably used to being the one asking the questions. Auditors general in Canada are generally highly esteemed in the public and the press, and rarely have to face scrutiny of their own. But on September 7 the Auditor General of New Brunswick may face challenging questions from… Read more »
Falsifying Business Records
Description: One of the biggest news items this past week had to be the indictment of former US president Donald Trump in a New York City courtroom. Though there was lots of debate about the event, from an accounting perspective, the interesting notion is that the charges revolve around the falsification of business records. One… Read more »
Rich Get Richer
Description: Development organization Oxfam has reported that the “1%” – the richest people in the world – have acquired 2/3 of the new wealth created since the pandemic. While the upper echelon is adding $2.7 billion to its wealth total each day – yes that does say billion with a “b” – people in less… Read more »
Who’s Watching?
Description: Mackenzie Irwin of the firm Samfiru Tumarkin LLP in Toronto, practices in the area of employment law. Irwin observed that over the pandemic, with so many working remotely, some employers began tracking employee activity online, trying to sift out the YouTube time-wasting from the spreadsheet work. But starting Tuesday, the Working for Workers Act… Read more »