laurab

All I can add to this is CMA is a Certified and/or Chartered Management Accountant, yet another designation, this one Canadian, though I think other Commonwealth countries have the equivalent or is it Japan that has CMAs too. Anyway I would say I see accounting designations requested a lot more than the CFA, but Toronto is the financial capital of Canada. If you want a safe job, accounting is probably the way to go, even after Enron went tits up they still need forensic accountants.  ;-)
Big 4 accountant types have told me the CA is the one to do, but I know this one younger dude who is an acronym collector, he was concurrently doing CA and CFA, now he’s doing some business evaluater certification. He agrees CFA is the hardest.
I think networking and attitude play a role, as does health. In Vancouver and Toronto, two of the most multi-cultural cities in the world, this seems strange. In Vancouver it is advantageous to be a Chinese speaker.