Dear Chapter Members and all CFEs in the GTA,

It has been a very busy year at the ACFE-GTA Chapter! A new Board of Directors was elected at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on October 2, 2019. We had five existing board members stand for re-election and welcomed six new board members…rounding out the board to eleven members in total. At the first board meeting following the AGM, I, Dorian Dwyer, CFE was elected by the new Board to be President & Chief Executive Officer, succeeding William Vasiliou, CFE. Also, Ross Dunsmore of Dunsmore Law graciously volunteered to be Legal Counsel to the Board.

 As reflected in our updated logo, we renamed our Chapter to ACFE-GTA Chapter in an effort to reflect the domicile of our many members and to better represent all the CFEs in Greater Toronto. And…we have improved our online presence through a new website which we hope you will visit on a regular basis, as well as made a commitment to more regularly update our LinkedIn, Instagram, & Facebook pages! Keep those “Likes” coming! We have also updated  our Core Purpose and Vision Statements, and the Chapter Governance structure. We encourage you to become more familiar with how your Chapter operates.

Penny Hill, our Chapter Administrator since inception, retired this November, and Deborah Thompson has been hired as the Chapter’s new part-time administrator. Penny was presented with a special award by Bruce Dorris, CFE, President, ACFE at the 2019 Canadian Fraud Conference in Montreal. We are fortunate that Penny has agreed to remain as a Director for the foreseeable future!

Over the past year, we provided a series of professional development opportunities for CFEs in the GTA and beyond. Many of our events, including dinner meetings, the April FIT conference & the September Financial Fraud Workshop were sponsored in part by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). We extend very grateful thanks for their sponsorship and continued support.

We initiated the new year with a networking event in late January, hosted and sponsored by SAS Canada, at their offices on King Street East in Toronto. This event was well attended and we received very positive feedback on this less formal evening. Special thanks to SAS Canada for sponsoring this event, and to Ryan Duquette, CFE for arranging this evening on behalf of the ACFE-GTA Chapter.

In September, we conducted a two-day workshop entitled “Investigating and Managing Management Fraud,” which provided over 60 participants with 16 CPE credits.

We partnered again this April with the Council of Professional Investigators of Ontario (CPIO) in hosting our annual Fraud Investigation Techniques FIT Conference (known this year as FIT 4), which was a tremendous success and provided the attendees with 7 CPE credits.

And, in October, we sponsored our Ethics Training Day, where local CFEs could attain up to 4 Ethics CPEs – two of which can be carried-over to their next qualifying year. We were honoured to have speaking Larry Ritchie, former Vice-Chair of the Ontario Securities Commission and now Partner, Litigation with Osler, Ula Ubani, the Chief Ethics & Conduct Officer for BMO Bank of Montreal, Andrew Kautz, CFE, Manager, Special Investigations at Canada Life, and Mark McManus, Chief Solutions Officer at GHLC Inc. The Chapter plans on hosting a similar Ethics training event every two years.

Looking ahead to 2020, we have lots of activities planned, so remember to check out our new website on a regular basis. Of special note is the FIT 5 Conference that is planned for Tuesday April 2, 2020 at the BMO Institute for Learning, 3550 Pharmacy Avenue in Toronto. We will have more details and pricing information available early in the new year. And…the 2020 Canadian Fraud Conference will be held in Toronto at the Beanfield Centre from November 1st to 4th. Remember to mark these dates on your calendar now!

Also, if you are not already a member of the ACFE-GTA Chapter, we encourage you to join. Chapters play an important role in enhancing and furthering the anti-fraud profession, and in providing support to CFEs across their jurisdictions. We need your support to continue our work and the small fee paid to our Chapter is the only source of funding we receive.

I would like to thank all those who have contributed to the success of the Chapter over the past year, especially all of our volunteer board members who have donated much time, energy and effort to ensuring we have a robust and professional presence in the GTA. Thanks also to Bill Vasiliou, our Immediate Past President and to Penny Hill for their commitment and dedication.

In closing, on behalf of the Chapter, I extend, to all our Members and all CFEs in the GTA, my warmest wishes for a successful and joyous New Year.

Dorian Dwyer, CFE.