Message from Your President & Chair

By Colin Bennett and Fred Zdan

This year we are celebrating the 60th anniversary of CMA Canada - British Columbia. In recognition of this, in recent months we have toured the province to meet, honour and recognize the over 700 CMAs who have held their designations for 25 years or longer. It has been with great pride that we have awarded our special service CMA lapel pins to these wonderful members who have supported our society for so many years. By all accounts and observations, our recipient members have enjoyed and appreciated these events. We will now hold these events across British Columbia every year.

There are many trends emerging that will have tremendous implications for the CMA Canada partnership and its members. During the past year, the CMA Canada Board has continued to evaluate the trends reshaping business. Such analysis is vital to developing strategies and programs that will ensure existing and future CMAs are equipped with the skills they will require to compete successfully.

To address the possibilities most likely to emerge, we are developing a wide range of new strategic initiatives that will position the CMA as the designation of choice for both business and for tomorrow’s professionals.

In this message, we will briefly discuss two of those key initiatives.

Mission, Vision, and Values

The way the future will unfold creates a compelling impetus to rethink CMA Canada’s strategic plan. To equip the CMA profession for new business realities, a number of factors are being considered in the assessment of our strategic plan and our Mission, Vision, and Values. These factors include escalating competition, emerging fields of practice, globalization, technology, and demographics.

There has already been a fair amount of review and discussion about the way to revise our Mission, Vision, and Values. We all agree that we can and should reduce and revise the wording, yet still ensure they are sufficiently comprehensive. Neither the mission or vision statements are meant to be slogans. In addition, the context of the mission and vision statements should be combined. One should not be used without the other. Otherwise, there will be considerable duplication in either statement.

The next steps for our strategic plan and our new mission, vision and values include further review by the CMA Canada Board in February 2006. After that, at our May 2006 National Board meeting, we will review and approve the new mission, vision and values as well as our implementation strategies, three-year financial plan, and annual business plan. Watch for announcements on all the approved revisions to follow shortly after May.

Governance, Management & Leadership

To achieve our goals, CMA Canada needs an effective governance model. Our model has changed several times over the years. As an organization we are preparing to update our existing governance model to meet the challenges and opportunities ahead. In early 2005, a Governance Task Force was formed to identify issues and recommend some solutions. One of our Past Presidents of the Provincial Board in BC, FCMA Bob Strachan, is one of the members of this task force.

The task force has evaluated the size and structure of the National Board of Directors as well as the roles and responsibilities of the three main constituent: the National Board of Directors, the Provincial/Territorial Board Chairs, and the Chief Executive Officers of each jurisdiction. At the national board meeting in September 2005, the Governance Task Force presented the following recommendations:

Reduce the size of the national board to 12 (Chair, Vice Chair, 8 elected representatives and 2 non-member lay reps).

• Elect representatives to the national board of directors according to regional representation with a Pan-Canadian perspective such as: Atlantic Canada-1; Quebec-2; Ontario-2; Saskatchewan/Manitoba/NWT-1, Alberta/British Columbia/Yukon-2.
• Form a Council of Chairs, comprised of the Chairs from the provincial/territorial Boards of Directors. These chairs would no longer serve on the National Board of Directors.
• Establish a CEO Partnership Council comprised of the Chief Executive Officers from each of the provinces/territories.

The three groups would work together. There would be less involvement by the National Board in partnership/operational matters and a significant increase in the role and responsibilities of the staff CEOs in the development of the long-term plans, implementation of the initiatives, and the comparison of performance measures to established objectives and other issues that affect the partnership. More discussions will take place and more details developed in the coming months.

We close this message to encourage our members to contact us with any questions or feedback about our initiatives in the area of internal effectiveness. We want to hear from you.

Colin Bennett, CMA, FCMA
President & Chief Executive Officer
Direct: 604.484.7002 or 1.800.663.9646 extension 7002

Fred Zdan, CMA
Chair
Email: chair@cmabc.com

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