The Investment Dealers Association of Canada says that beginning Oct. 4 it will launch an accreditation process to pre-approve courses and seminars for the IDA’s Continuing Education Program.

The IDA says Harrington Lane Inc. has been chosen to be the exclusive evaluator of courses seeking IDA CE accreditation. HLI will evaluate courses against the criteria for IDA CE eligibility and will make a recommendation to the IDA, which will grant final accreditation, including the maximum number of hours accredited.

HLI will recommend whether the course should be accredited as qualifying towards Compliance study or Professional Development study, and will also determine how many hours of credit should be assigned to the course. HLI may make suggestions or comments that would help the applicant to make changes to either gain an accreditation recommendation or increase the number of hours for which accreditation will be recommended.

Applications for accreditation and course material will be sent directly from the applicant to HLI. HLI will charge evaluation fees directly to the applicant under a schedule approved by the IDA. All types of education programs including seminars, written and electronic courses may apply.

CE courses currently administered by the Canadian Securities Institute that are already approved for the IDA’s CE program will continue to be accredited, as will CSI and other courses that fulfill a proficiency requirement and are eligible to be used to meet a CE requirement.

Accreditation will not be mandatory for a course to be acceptable for CE credits. IDA firms still have the ability to approve additional courses, including in-house courses, for their reps. However, accreditation will enable a firm to accept a course with certainty that it meets IDA guidelines.