Change of leadership at audit watchdog CPAB at critical time for audit, accounting regulation

TORONTO, Nov. 9, 2025 – As a new era of regulatory transparency approaches, the Canadian Public Accountability Board has appointed a new chief executive officer. Sonny Randhawa, who currently serves as the executive vice president, regulatory operations at the Ontario Securities Commission, will be moving from the OSC to CPAB effective March 2, 2026.

“I am honoured to join CPAB and contribute to its mandate of independent oversight and audit quality,” said Randhawa in a press release. “I look forward to working with CPAB’s Board, leadership team, and stakeholders across Canada and internationally to advance transparency, confidence and regulatory excellence in our capital markets.”

Randhawa will replace Carol Paradine, who was appointed chief executive officer in 2018, led the Canadian audit watchdog through an eight-year period of unprecedented change. Under Paradine’s stewardship, CPAB announced historic changes to its regulatory reporting, following consultation with various legislative and regulatory bodies.

These changes also occurred during a time of pointed media scrutiny and comparisons to the practices of its American counterpart, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. Most notable among the changes at CPAB were the publication of enforcement actions and the upcoming publication of firm-specific inspection reports, which has been characterized as “naming names.”

New CPAB boss an accountant and veteran executive of financial regulation

Sukhbir Singh (Sonny) Randhawa is a chartered professional accountant who has worked for more than two decades at the Ontario Securities Commission. (Randhawa legally added “Sonny” to his name in 2008.) He is a graduate of York University and a former senior manager at BDO Canada. In addition to his CPA, CA designation, Randhawa is a Certified Public Accountant (Illinois).

As executive vice president of regulatory operations at the OSC, Randhawa “leads four divisions collectively responsible for regulating and developing policy impacting close to 80,000 capital market participants." According to his OSC profile, Randhawa “held progressively senior positions at the OSC, most recently serving as Executive Director, responsible for the oversight and leadership of several regulatory and advisory operational teams.”

Notably, when the mandate of the OSC was expanded in 2022, the market watchdog appointed Randhawa as a second executive director, in a bid to “facilitate financial innovation and modernize regulation,” according to OSC chair and CEO Grant Vingoe.

In 2023, Vingoe delivered the keynote address on the “Critical Role of Auditors in Ontario’s Capital Markets” to a CPAB symposium on “the evolving fraud landscape,” saying “securities regulators, working closely with the accounting profession, need to maintain our momentum on updating and evolving our oversight and regulatory regime as we identify areas for improvement.”

“Sonny has been a champion of regulatory integrity and public trust,” said Vingoe in a press release. “His leadership at the OSC has shaped a more transparent and resilient capital markets landscape. I congratulate Sonny on this appointment and look forward to continued collaboration with CPAB.”

Randhawa joins audit watchdog at a critical juncture

With only weeks remaining before the new year begins, Randhawa joins the audit watchdog at a critical juncture for transparency and reporting. In the past two years, under new disclosure rules, CPAB published several enforcement actions, most notably against accounting firms in British Columbia.

In 2026, for the first time in its history, the regulator will publish firm-specific inspection reports, rather than semi-annual reports that compile results and do not reference accounting firms by name. Firm disclosure has been a common practice at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in the United States for years. The US audit watchdog has a robust online and public database of inspection reports and enforcement actions of firms around the world.

Last year, CPAB published an inspection report for Big Four firms, revealing that two of the firms did not meet industry standards in their 2023 — but under current regulations, the audit watchdog could not disclose their identities.

Three of the Big Four firms are currently embroiled in a massive lawsuit over the bankruptcy of Bridging Finance Inc., formerly one of Canada’s largest private lenders, whose leaders were found guilty of fraud by the disciplinary arm of the OSC. PricewaterhouseCoopers, which is acting as receiver, filed a $1.4 billion lawsuit against Ernst and Young, two years after filing a similar lawsuit against KPMG, alleging negligence in their roles as auditors.

Paradine led the regulator through period of change

The past eight years have been ones of unprecedented change at CPAB. A Deloitte alumnus, Paradine succeeded Brian Hunt, a founding director of CPAB, who retired in 2018. Paradine’s tenure not only included significant regulatory changes but also the pandemic and its challenges to audit inspection, as well as issues related to cannabis accounting, cryptocurrencies, and artificial intelligence. 

In 2022, former Ontario Audit General Bonnie Lysyk, also a chartered professional accountant, told Canadian Accountant that she wanted to see better communication between CPAB and the OSC, noting in a report that the “federal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States has greater authority over the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).”

CPAB Chair Richard Payette stated: "The Board of CPAB sincerely thanks Carol Paradine for her outstanding leadership these past eight years, and for the lasting contributions she has made to CPAB and to the auditing profession as a whole. We wish Carol continued success in future governance roles."

Randhawa will join the Canadian Public Accountability Board in March, 2026. “On behalf of the board, I am pleased to welcome Sonny Randhawa as CPAB’s next CEO,” said Payette. “His deep regulatory expertise and collaborative approach align seamlessly with our strategy and culture and will be instrumental in reinforcing and advancing CPAB’s mandate to contribute to public confidence in the integrity of financial reporting, and ultimately to protecting Canada’s investing public.”

Colin Ellis is a contributing editor to Canadian Accountant.