Are IFRSs in Canada's future?

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09 Sep 2004

The Accounting Standards Board of Canada is in the midst of developing a five-year plan for the period 2005-2010. The possibility of adopting IFRSs in Canada is one possible outcome.

The Invitation to Comment states:

Four key issues, which need to be addressed sequentially, are whether Canada should:

  • maintain its own standard-setting capability;
  • maintain its own GAAP or adopt either U.S. GAAP or International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), the standards of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB);
  • maintain the current strategy of working to support the international convergence of accounting standards while harmonizing with U.S. GAAP; and
  • consider modifying current GAAP requirements to provide better information to the users of financial statements of various different types of entities through, for example, a wider application of differential reporting.

Currently, domestic Canadian companies are not permitted to use IFRSs in place of Canadian GAAP. Foreign securities issuers in Canada were permitted, starting in 2004, to use IFRSs without reconciliation to Canadian GAAP, though this amounts to only a handful of companies.

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