NOHFC - Success Stories

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"It’s a great program. It’s retaining the kids in Northern Ontario, so they have a much higher likelihood of staying here. They see that they can get the training they need..."

Amanda Gannon is not the first accounting intern to earn her wings at the accounting firm of Ross, Pope & Company in Kirkland Lake. But she’s the first one to do so under a provincial internship program designed specifically to help retain our young professionals in Northern Ontario.

From Trainee to Trainer

Ross, Pope & Company has been operating successfully in Northeastern Ontario for decades. Established in Timmins in 1925, the company opened a second location in Kirkland Lake in 1983. Tom Gannon (no relation to Amanda), one of the firm’s young chartered accountants (or CAs), was entrusted to oversee this process and moved to the nearby town. More than twenty years later, the Kirkland Lake office is still going strong, and Tom is now a partner with the firm. Ever mindful of the opportunity he was given all those years ago, Tom has ensured that the Kirkland Lake office remains a training ground for up-and-coming CAs.

Tapping into Opportunity

A long and arduous process, obtaining CA designation requires completing 30 months of post-graduate articling experience. In addition, students must pass three difficult exams. After years of absorbing the costs of training and mentoring articling students, Tom discovered the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation’s (NOHFC) Youth Internship and Co-op Program. Thanks to this unique wage subsidy program, Tom got the opportunity to tap into funding that would support the training of new CAs and Amanda got the opportunity to gain valuable work experience in her own northern community.

Introduced in 2005, the NOHFC’s Youth Internship and Co-op Program provides funding for Northern Ontario employers to create work placements and internships for skilled young northerners; positions that will lead to rewarding careers in the North.

“That’s where [the NOHFC’s Youth Internship and Co-op Program] became very helpful,” Tom says. “The students are learning but they’re not really earning us any money. And you can’t start the practical training until you have your university degree, so the whole process is like an internship program anyway. It’s like [the NOHFC] made this program specifically for the accounting industry!”

“It’s a great program. It’s retaining the kids in Northern Ontario, so they have a much higher likelihood of staying here. They see that they can get the training they need up here. I’ve always given local kids a leg up, and this program allows us to be a little more generous with our opening salaries, so that’s a real benefit as well.”

From Amanda’s perspective, NOHFC funding helped the firm to create an opportunity for her to learn the ropes, and she appreciates that this kind of support encourages northern employers to take the time to train future employees.

“Not only did it help me, but it helped the firm as well,” adds Amanda. “In the field you really need the hands-on experience. University alone doesn’t prep you for the real world. You get the book knowledge, but once you’re actually doing the work you get pretty overwhelmed. Ross, Pope & Co. takes a big loss for the first two years, training us from the ground up.”

Experience Counts

For Amanda, this was the perfect opportunity. Recognizing in high school that math and accounting were her biggest interests (and highest marks), she enrolled in the Accounting program at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo. But Amanda remained eager to fulfil her career aspirations in the North.

“After my first year of articling, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do this anymore because it was so overwhelming,” she claims. “But the NOHFC funding really helped because it allowed Tom to work with me and show me the ropes. There’s a large amount of ever-changing standards to keep up with, and there’s a huge amount of liability for not complying with these standards.”

While the end result is a prestigious (and marketable) title, the journey towards a CA designation is gruelling, as well as expensive. Amanda still has some more exams to write, but she is beginning to reap the rewards of her hard work. Most importantly, she is doing all of this in her hometown.

“My hope is that Ross, Pope & Company will continue to train financial professionals for years to come,” says Tom. “It’s a great business, and it’s great for these kids who want to stay in Kirkland Lake. They can make good money. They can do as well as any of their colleagues in southern Ontario.”

• Learn how the NOHFC can help you: Northern Ontario Youth Internship and Co-op Program

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