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 »
Posts Categorized: Ethics
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 »
Misconduct at IWK
Description: Tracy Kitch has been found guilty of fraud over $5,000 for her misuse of a corporate credit card at the IWK Children’s Hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Kitch was formerly the CEO of the well-known institution, and following allegations of misconduct in 2017, she repaid the IWK for personal items charged to the card…. Read more »
Problems at PWC
Description: Regulators in both Canada and the United States have slapped roughly $1 million in fines on auditing giant PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) for an internal cheating scandal in which 1,200 employees were implicated. Last year, PWC Australia faced a similar problem that resulted in over $600,000 in fines. One certainly hopes that the cheating did not… Read more »
Bring Back Pandemic Premium?
Description: Early in the Covid crisis, many lauded grocery strore chains as they cranked up the salaries of front line employees with “Hero Pay.” But the “Hero Pay” premium has all but disappeared, while at the same time grocery chain profits have generated big bonuses for company executives. This has prompted pressure from various voices… Read more »
Threats to Independence
Description: Well, they’ve gone and done it again. That’s three times in a row now that the Province of New Brunswick has gone ahead and appointed its Comptroller as its Auditor General, without the benefit of any cooling-off period. It seems very difficult to understand how this key financial officer in government – in this… Read more »
The Facebook Dilemma
Description: Last week a lot of the business news was dominated by the story of former Facebook employee Frances Haugen, a whistle-blower who testified before the U.S. Senate regarding Facebook’s alleged choice of profit over user protection. Haugen also had released various documents to the news media, casting her former employer in quite a negative… Read more »
An Expensive Shot
Description: Now that was a costly injection: the head of the organization investing your Canada Pension Plan resigned last week after news broke that he had received a Covid-19 vaccine in Dubai. Mark Machin has said this trip to the Middle East was for personal reasons, but the timing of his trip comes with repercussions…. Read more »
Burnley Understanding Financial Accounting, 3rd Canadian Edition
Kimmel Financial Accounting, 8th Canadian Edition
Weygandt Accounting Principles, 9th Canadian Edition
Kimmel Survey of Accounting, 2nd Edition
Kieso Intermediate Accounting, 13th Canadian Edition
Weygandt Managerial Accounting, 6th Canadian Edition
Farmer Cost Accounting, 1st Edition
Savage Accounting Information Systems, 1st Edition