Canada - Seven Key IFRS Differences

Canada’s publicly accountable enterprises (PAEs) have to give up Canadian generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and switch to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for annual periods starting on or after January 1, 2011. Despite the fact that few PAEs have started moving on this — as some surveys have shown — such enterprises should have completed their transition planning and assessed the anticipated effect of the change on their financial reporting by the end of this year. In fact, the Canadian Securities Administrators want to see those plans discussed in management’s discussion and analysis covering fiscal year 2008.(Read more in the June/July 2009 CAmagazine article Seven Key Differences.)