Dates and location
Pricing
Hours
Dates and location
Pricing
Hours
Description
Join our CPA Ontario’s December Ethics Conference as leading Canadian and international experts explore how ethical principles guides the profession in today's business environment.
Designed for CPAs in public practice, industry, government, not-for-profit organizations, and leadership roles, this conference provides actionable strategies to strengthen professional judgment, maintain objectivity, safeguard confidential information, and uphold the profession’s commitment to serving the public interest.
Early Bird Sale: Save $50 off this conference by registering before October 30, 2026. Promotion cannot be combined with other offers or Passport. Access the Early Bird Sale by logging into your account.
Through engaging keynote presentations and expert panel discussions, participants will leave with practical approaches for applying ethical principles to complex business decisions while enhancing their ability to navigate emerging risks in a distinctly Canadian regulatory and business context. Participants will examine how the CPA Code of Professional Conduct applies to emerging issues involving AI, technology, governance, workplace culture, and financial crime. Gain practical strategies to strengthen professional judgment when rules alone do not provide clear answers, build the confidence to address ethical concerns while protecting public trust, and enhance your ability to identify fraud and financial integrity risks. The conference will also explore the role of organizational culture, controls, and accountability in driving ethical outcomes, while providing valuable insights into evolving expectations around confidentiality, objectivity, and serving the public interest within the Canadian business and regulatory landscape.
Looking to enroll 3 or more team members? Email orglearning@cpaontario.ca to explore group pricing options and find the right solution for your organization.
Agenda
Agenda
Topic: Ethical AI Leadership: The Ethical Nightmare Challenge
{PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE}
AI is moving from tools that answer questions to agents that take actions, and to systems of multiple agents that work with each other. For accountants and finance leaders, that changes where ethical risk comes from and who is responsible for it. This session explains, in plain terms, what today's AI is and how it works: the underlying model, the agents built on top of it, and the multi-agent systems that connect them. It shows where ethical and reputational risks arise at each of those layers. It then introduces the Ethical Nightmare Challenge, a practical framework any organization can use to identify the outcomes it must not allow and build the safeguards to prevent them.
Key Takeaways:
- What AI is, including the difference between narrow, generative and agentic AI.
- The ethical risks, or "nightmares," built into the technology itself.
- How to use the Ethical Nightmare Challenge to name your organization's "ethical nightmares" and put concrete safeguards into place to avoid them.
Topic: Ethical Courage in the Workplace: Getting Curious When It's Easier to Judge {PROFESSIONAL BEHAVIOUR}
Panelists
Michelle Causton, FCPA, FCGA, MBA, Ethics, President at BZMind, Governance & Professional Judgment Speaker
Philip Maguire, CPA, CA, Principal, Glenidan Consultancy Ltd.
Topic: Culture, Controls, and Accountability - Lessons Learnt From Scandals {INTEGRITY & DUE CARE}
Topic: Ethics as the Last Line of Defence: The CPA’s Role in Protecting Canada’s Financial Integrity {CONFIDENTIALITY}
Compliance is the floor. Ethics is the ceiling.
Financial crime has evolved far beyond traditional fraud and money laundering. Organized crime, cybercrime, hostile foreign states, sanctions evasion, corruption, and professional facilitation are increasingly interconnected, and legitimate financial and commercial systems are often the battleground.
Drawing on more than four decades of experience investigating organized crime and financial crime, Garry will examine why ethical judgment, professional skepticism, and courage have never been more important for Chartered Professional Accountants. The presentation challenges CPAs to look beyond technical compliance and recognize their unique position as gatekeepers of financial integrity and public trust.
Through real-world experience and emerging financial crime trends, Garry will demonstrate that ethics is no longer simply a professional obligation - it is increasingly connected to Canada’s economic security, institutional integrity, and national resilience.
Key Takeaways:
- Compliance alone is not enough.
Rules establish the minimum standard. Ethical professionals must be prepared to ask one more question, challenge transactions that do not make sense, and consider not only whether something can be done, but whether it should be done.
- Professional skepticism is a frontline defence against financial crime.
Criminal organizations and hostile actors increasingly operate through legitimate companies, sophisticated financial structures, professional services, and apparently credible transactions. CPAs are often among the few professionals positioned to recognize when the financial story does not add up.
- Protecting public trust requires professional courage. Ethical leadership sometimes means resisting pressure from clients, executives, revenue targets, or colleagues and being prepared to say “no.” In an era of converging financial and national security threats, the CPA’s independence, judgment, and integrity are critical safeguards for both the profession and Canada.
Speaker(s)
| OPENING KEYNOTE | |
|---|---|
|
|
Reid Blackman, Ph.D. is the author of “The Ethical Nightmare Challenge” (April 2026) and “Ethical Machines” (2022, HBR Press), as well as host of the Ethical Machines podcast. He leads Virtue in developing and implementing The Ethical Nightmare Challenge with clients, having previously led the company’s efforts in designing Responsible AI programs and training for the likes of Amazon, Etsy, Kraft Heinz, Merck, US Bank, Nationwide, and more. He has also advised the Canadian government on their federal AI regulations, was a founding member of EY’s External AI Advisory Board, and was an external Senior Advisor to the Deloitte AI Institute. He is also a keynote speaker, having delivered presentations to dozens of professional associations and conferences, as well as to the FBI, NASA, and the World Economic Forum. His work has been profiled by The Wall Street Journal, CNN, the BBC, Forbes, and Fox News. His written work appears in The Harvard Business Review and The New York Times. Prior to founding Virtue, Reid was a professor of philosophy at Colgate University and UNC-Chapel Hill. |
| PANELISTS | |
|
|
Michelle Causton, FCPA, FCGA, is a public speaker and educator who helps professionals think clearly when the rules are not enough. Drawing on decades of experience in accounting, governance, education, and leadership, she explores the pressures, assumptions, and cultural signals that shape professional judgment. Her style is practical, conversational, and grounded in real-world decision-making. |
|
|
Philip Maguire is a Chartered Professional Accountant, Chartered Accountant who received his designation while employed at Ernst & Young (formerly Clarkson Gordon). He is a principal of an accounting practice that specializes in Compliance, Internal Audit and Accounting Standards. His clients span a variety of industries with the market capitalizations of these companies ranging from $50 million to $2 billion. Before he formed his consulting practice Philip was a Vice-President of Finance at one of the country's largest financial institutions. Philip has been an instructor for CPA in a number of provinces in Canada, Ireland and England & Wales. He has over 30 years of business experience in Canada, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Ireland, England & Wales and the United States. Philip has been a guest speaker on several television shows such as The Prosperity Show, Money in the Bank, The Lang and O’Leary Exchange and Your Wealth. He has contributed many articles to the Canada Business Wire on matters dealing with personal finance. He is a former Chairman of a Chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society. He was a member of the Ontario Securities Commission’s Continuous Disclosure Advisory Committee and the Accounting Standards Board Insurance Accounting Task Force. |
| CLOSING KEYNOTE | |
|
|
Garry W.G. Clement, CAMS, CFCS, CFE, FIS, CCI, CCIA, is a recognized financial crime prevention expert, author, investigator, and advocate whose career has placed him at the intersection of ethics, organized crime, money laundering, financial institutions, and public accountability. Garry began his work in anti-money laundering in 1983 and was instrumental in developing the RCMP’s Proceeds of Crime Program, later serving as its National Director. During his policing career, he worked as an investigator and undercover operator on some of Canada’s most significant organized crime investigations and was recognized with numerous Canadian and international commendations. For Chartered Accountants, Garry brings a particularly relevant perspective. His career has demonstrated repeatedly that major financial crimes rarely succeed through criminal activity alone. They depend upon access to legitimate businesses, financial systems, professional services, and individuals willing either to ignore warning signs or compromise professional standards. His message is that ethics is not simply a matter of complying with a professional code—it is one of society’s most important defences against corruption, fraud, money laundering, and organized crime. Garry is an author and contributor to numerous publications on financial crime. He contributed to Dirty Money: Financial Crime in Canada and is the author of Undercover, drawing upon decades of firsthand experience investigating organized crime, money laundering, and the vulnerabilities within Canadian institutions. |
Speaker & Sponsor Forms
Are you interested in speaking at one of our conferences?
Click here for our speaking proposal form.
Are you interested in being a sponsor for one of our conferences?
How to Access the Conference
This CPA Ontario PD conference is hosted on the innovative RingCentral (formerly Hopin) platform. An email invitation with a link to join the event on the RingCentral platform will be sent closer to the date.
Please check your Junk and Spam folders and ensure no-reply@events.ringcentral.com has been added to your safe addresses. We recommend you join five minutes prior to the scheduled start time.
Registration, cancellation, withdrawal and all other CPA Ontario PD policies can be found here.
Disclaimer
The views expressed in the course are non-authoritative and have not been formally endorsed by CPA Ontario and do not reflect the views of CPA Ontario. The information included in the course is for general information purposes only.
CPA Ontario, the presenters and the authors do not accept any responsibility or liability that might occur directly or indirectly as a consequence of the use or application of or reliance on this material.
Testimonials
I like having a virtual conference - saves travel time and costs for the price you can charge. I really enjoyed all the polls and how they were incorporated into the topics. It kept you engaged and being able to see how everyone else was thinking on the responses. I also enjoyed see the real-life examples. For the last speaker - he had me googling his video's after watching the trailers. It is interesting to see what cases are out there related to ethics.
This was an educational, enlightening and eye-opening conference. Understanding how technology, AI, and the digital world impact on our ability to do our jobs well is crucial. Trust can be easily undermined if we are not actively ensuring the security and credibility of the information we use to make financial decisions on a daily basis.
Very impressed with the knowledge and diverse topics of each speaker. Furthermore, each speaker brought it back directly to my responsibilities as a CPA.