CPAB is a national agency established in 2003 as a Federal not-for-profit corporation.It was established under the Canada Business Corporations Act with the mandate to promote high quality external audits of reporting issuers.CPAB was created by the Canadian Securities Administrators, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (Canada) and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. A Council of Governors has the primary oversight role and is responsible, in particular, for appointing CPAB's Board of Directors and selecting the Board Chair and Vice Chair.
The Board of Directors has overall responsibillity for supervising the management of CPAB's activities and affairs. The Board has established an Audit Committee and a Human Resources and Governance Committee as standing committees to oversee particular aspects of CPAB's affairs.
CPAB has developed by-laws, Board and Committee charters and codes of ethics for staff and consulants and the Board of Directors to guide its operations. An independently operated ethics hot-line has been established to enable anonymous reporting of matters relating to CPAB, its employees, the firms CPAB inspects or any Canadian reporting issuer.