A History of Canadian Accounting Thought and Practice

This book, first published in 1993, focuses on the evolution of accounting institutions, practices and standard-setting in Canada. Canada’s federal system complicates the jurisdictional authority for accounting matters. The Canadian constitution empowers the ten provinces to regulate the training and certification of accountants, and each can incorporate organizations. A great deal of effort has been made by accounting bodies on jurisdictional coordination and disputes, and this book analyses how these systems have come to function in their present form.

Part 1. Early Records 1. Accounting for Les Forges de Saint-Maurice, 1730-1736 H. Mann 2. Accounting for a Brewery at Louisbourg S. Felton and H. Mann 3. A Complete System of Bookkeeping by Double Entry Accounting Primer of Robin, Jones and Whitman4. The Companies Reviewed; The Financial Statements: Form and Format; Footnotes H. Mann Part 2. The Profession 5. Fifty Years Ago J. Parton 6. Fifty Years Ago H.D.L. Gordon 7. Three Score Years H.P. Edwards 8. George Edwards, the Great Organizer P. Creighton 9. Research Contributions to Canadian Standards: A Retrospective R.M. Skinner 10. Early Canadian Financial Statement Disclosure Legislation G.J. Murphy 11. Professionalization and Intra-Professional Competition in the Canadian Accounting Profession A.J. Richardson 12. Who Audits? The Emergence of Hegemony in the Ontario Accountancy Profession A.J. Richardson 13. Canada’s Accounting Elite, 1880-1930 A.J. Richardson Part 3. Standard Setting 14. Ontario Provincial Statutes, Financial Statement Disclosure Requirements The Ontario Companies Act, 1907 15. Standardization of Shareholders’ Accounts and Auditors’ Reports and Certificates J.C. Gray 16. Canada, Ch. 4 of Forging Accounting Principles in Five Countries S.A. Zeff 17. A Descriptive Analysis of Selected Aspects of the Canadian Accounting Standard-Setting Process J.H. Waterhouse 18. Accounting Standard Setting… A New Beginning: Evolution Not Revolution E. Stamp 19. Do We Need a Canadian Conceptual Framework J.H. Amernic and W.M. Lemon 20. Financial Statement Concepts Accounting Standards Committee, The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants Part 4. Legislation, Inquiries and Regulation 21. Financial Statement Disclosure and Corporate Law: The Canadian Experience G.J. Murphy 22. Director’s Reports – A Criticism and Suggestion R.G.H. Smails 23. Government Intervention – The PIP Grant Accounting Controversy R.H. Crandall 24. How the Regulators See Us S.M. Beck and P.G. Cherry 25. Report of the Commission to Study the Public’s Expectation of Audits: Executive Summary The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants 26. Institutional Responses to Bank Failure: A Comparative Case Study of the Home Bank (1923) and Canadian Commercial Bank (1985) B. Lew and A.J. Richardson Part 5. Chronologies 27. A Chronology of the Development of Corporate Financial reporting in Canada G.J. Murphy 28. An Interpretive Chronology of the Development of Accounting Associations in Canada, 1879-1979 A.J. Richardson

George J. Murphy