EARLY CANADIAN FINANCIAL STATEMENT DISCLOSURE LEGISLATION

The Ontario Companies Act of 1907 was one of the earliest legislative enactments to require presentation at company annual meetings, and specify the content of, the financial statements of commercial and manufacturing companies. The study describes the background to this important event and points to the two main influencing forces.the office of the Provincial Secretary and the equally active and informed Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario. The concern for disclosure suggests that Ontario was in the forefront of accounting development in the latter part of the nineteenth and the first decade of the twentieth centuries.