2009 CA Compensation Survey 

Every two years, the CICA and the provincial institutes/ordre conduct a profession-wide compensation survey. The survey results are a valuable tool for members to benchmark their salaries against other members in their region and are used to promote the profession to students across Canada.

Results from the 2009 Profession Compensation show that the CA profession continues to be financially rewarding. Members work in a variety of roles and sectors. Average compensation is virtually unchanged since 2007 from $186,544 to $186,543 and median compensation is up 3.1% from $123,000 to $126,857. This apparent stability does mask some notable changes:

• Non-base compensation has decreased, on average, by 16.2% for non-owners even though base compensation has increased 5.6%. This has led to a total decline among non-owners of -0.7%. Sole practitioners (+13.5%), CA firm partners (+4.5%) and other business owners (+7.9%) had, on average, increased compensation compared to the 2007 study, though their increase were considerably lower than the percentage increases between the 2005 and 2007 studies.
• Average decline in compensation was most pronounced with the highest earners: the top 1% of CA earners saw their total compensation decrease by 12.5% compared to the 2007 survey. In comparison simply removing the top 1% of values from both the 2007 and 2009 data would result in an increase in total compensation of 0.8% from 2007 to 2009.
• Respondents from the 1st to the 85th percentile generally saw their total compensations increase between 2% and 3% compared to 2007.
• On average total compensation increased in all areas of practice except industry (-1.7% to $229,544) which is the area of practice with the most respondents and the highest average compensation.
• Regional changes from 2007 to 2009 were quite different than between the 2005 and 2007 surveys, as average increases were highest in the Atlantic and moderate in the prairies; while there were declines in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec (see bottom of page for more detail).