by BETTER FARMING STAFF
An audited financial statement for the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario failed to pass muster at the organization’s re-accreditation hearing in Guelph on Saturday. The chair of The Ontario Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Tribunal panel ordered the federation’s general manager and president to file an amended audited statement with the Tribunal and be prepared to come before the panel again to explain it.
The Tribunal found fault with a statement provided by general manager Nathan Stevens that did not contain clear numbers showing the amounts of monies the provincial organization paid to its affiliates. According to the regulations of the Farm Registration and Farm Organizations Funding Act, said hearing chairman Nicholas Richter, the financial statements and the auditor’s report must be prepared in accordance with standards set in the Handbook of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants.
After a lunch break during the day long hearing, Stevens came back with another statement, which Richter described as “helpful, but it is not an audited statement.”
Stevens told the Tribunal that the accountant who had prepared the financial report was not available on the weekend. (Richter allowed at the beginning of the hearing that this might be the first time that a Tribunal panel had ever sat on a Saturday.)
The Christian Farmers membership numbers are holding steady, Arthur area rabbit and sheep farmer Lorne Small told the Tribunal. Last year the organization had 4,441 members registered through farm business registrations.
But farm business registrations are not the be-all and end all, as all three general farm organizations have found this year, to their chagrin. On May 23, Christian Farmers, as well as the Ontario Federation of Agriculture were served notice that their accreditation had been ended. A common issue with all three organizations is that an interpretation of the 1993 act by the ministry’s legal services branch, concluded that directing a farm business registration fee of $195 to a particular organization did not confer membership in that organization. That would require a separate step, which the Tribunal’s decision refers to as “an explicit membership agreement.”
Small said he hoped that a similar efficient system for obtaining that agreement could be used by all three general organizations to satisfy the requirements of the Act.
Small says the organization’s bylaws have been changed to allow for another type of membership that will allow support by farm business owners who normally object to joining an organization because of their faith. BF
Comments
If the concern here is there is no “an explicit membership agreement.” meaning no specific performance agreement contract it would be quite interesting to see the structure of that document. Would this bring an end to long never-ending congratulations and platitudes when recycled funding and meaningless renamed programs are rolled out? Would the work ethic of "see.more.and.do.little" come to an end?
In any worthwhile contract you can not have the benefit without the obligation. A contract must have agreement to have consent, not an arbitrary no choice check box.
Question is, who's obligation and who's benefit will be served while there are two paying masters of obligation?
Accreditation is only granted by (tribunal) government (except when overruled by the minister), but is ultimately bought and guaranteed with government stable funding and performance, a tout often uttered and promised by a previous ag minister.
YOU CAN NOT GROW guns and butter on the same farm
This is going from bad to worse, and is little more than a comedy of errors. What accountant qualified to undertake audits, and it is my understanding that only Chartered Accountants are deemed qualified to prepare audited financial statements, wouldn't have insisted, right from the get-go, that the statements be prepared in accordance with the CICA Handbook? Furthermore, the CFFO was told, when their previous application was denied, that they needed audited statements prepared in accordance with the CICA Handbook, and they either knew, or should have known, this is a basic requirement for fulfilling any obligation dependent on legislative entitlement - that they didn't/couldn't/wouldn't do this most-simple, and most-necessary, task before coming back to the hearing, speaks volumes about basic capability issues at the CFFO.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Hi Stephen
The CFFO audited statements are prepared in accordance with the Generally Accepted Accounting Prinicples (GAAP), and have been for the duration of FBR. GAAP is the main contents of the Handbook regarding Accounting. In all the previous tribunal hearings it has been understood that GAAP standards = CICA Handbook standards. Prior to the hearing, our accountant assured us that referring to GAAP in his auditors report would be acceptible, and that referring to GAAP is the standard practice.
From the CICA website:
The CICA Handbook – Accounting provides the standards set by the Accounting Standards Board for entities that prepare financial statements in accordance with Canadian generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). It includes International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), Accounting Standards for Private Enterprises (ASPE), Accounting Standards for Not-for-Profit Organizations, and Accounting Standards for Pension Plans.
Regards,
Nathan Stevens
The point is that you didn't prepare the audited report in a way consistent with the standards outlined in the CICA Handbook, and that's why you were asked to come back with an amended audited report, and be prepared to explain it. The simple fact of the matter is that your accountant gave you bad advice, and it may seriously impair, if not quash, your chances of being re-accredited. Even the CICA website makes it abundantly clear that the CICA Handbook provides the standards for preparing financial statements using GAAP, and not the other way around, as your accountant would appear to have led you to believe.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Maybe CICA should explain to FCC when making farmers loans that advertising and giving farmers payments of interest only is poor business
have you ever looked at the pictures BT puts up leaders
Seems like male leaders having widom you have go tee beards, then in photo ops we farmers must have our arms crossed in front of our equipment. HAVE NOT FIGURED OUT WHAT THE WOMEN LEADERS DO YET
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