The Plan includes the decision to move financial reporting for Canadian publicly accountable enterprises to a single set of globally accepted high-quality standards, namely, International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs), as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).

The AcSB has now published a more detailed Implementation Plan for Incorporating International Financial Reporting Standards into Canadian GAAP (PDF 373k). The Implementation Plan identifies key decisions that the AcSB will need to make as it implements the Strategic Plan for publicly accountable enterprises. Although the Impmentation Plan may be revised and updated as circumstances warrant, currently it envisions 2010 as the last year that publicly accountable enterprises will report under current Canadian GAAP and 2011 as the first year of reporting under a complete set of IFRS-based Canadian standards. Because some current Canadian standards are already IFRS-based, and because others will become IFRS-based before 2011, the changeover to IFRS-based Canadian standards is likely to be more gradual, rather than abrupt, for most enterprises.

Click to view the Strategic Plan for the Direction of Accounting Standards (PDF 139k).