At its meeting on June 22-23, 2020, the AASOC was advised that the AASB had a robust discussion of the principles and did not support IAASB’s direction for this project. The Board does not endorse a separate standard as the preferred solution. It believes that the most effective and timely solution to address the key issues respondents identified in the IAASB’s Discussion Paper is to make limited revisions to the ISAs or develop non-authoritative guidance. An AASOC member asked if the development of a separate standard impacts Canada differently because it has a large number of smaller entities. Mr. Turner responded that unlike the ISAs, each jurisdiction will need to decide whether to adopt this separate standard. He added that the separate standard will not be applicable to listed entities and highlighted that the AASB is keen to ensure that the Canadian Auditing Standards are scalable for entities, irrespective of their size. Mr. Charbonneau commented that the Board approaches this from the perspective that complexity cannot be defined at an entity level, but rather it is related to a particular area of a business’ operations or its financial statements. For complex areas, the Board wants to ensure the development of robust standards. However, within that same entity, there are fewer complex areas where a scalable model could be adopted. Council members discussed the benefits and drawbacks of revising the ISAs as well as the development of a separate standard.
Review the minutes on the AASOC's Web site.