SOC 2 auditors in Montreal

What a Montreal company should settle before it hires a SOC 2 audit firm: which privacy statute already binds it in Quebec, who locally is asking for the report, and what the examination costs in Canadian dollars.

Last reviewed 2026-08-31Written by Jacob Masse, TrazTech Inc.

A Montreal company can hire any CPA firm in Canada for its SOC 2 examination, and that firm does not have to sit in Quebec. It does have to be registered with a provincial CPA body, licensed for assurance work, and independent of whoever built the controls. Fieldwork for Montreal clients runs remotely almost everywhere. The useful question is not who is nearby, but who has audited a Quebec company shaped like yours, understands Law 25, and will price the engagement in Canadian dollars.

Quebec companies answer to Law 25 rather than PIPEDA, which carries its own breach reporting duties, privacy impact assessment requirement and penalties of up to four percent of worldwide turnover. A compliance program built only against PIPEDA will not satisfy a Quebec customer.

Montreal in one table

Everything below follows from these six rows. Two of them move the work most: Law 25 is already binding on a Quebec business, and the Montreal sectors listed decide what a buyer's security schedule will ask you to prove.

How Law 25 changes a Montreal scoping decision

The Privacy category inside SOC 2 is an AICPA construct. Passing it does not discharge Law 25, and complying with Law 25 is not tested by the auditor unless a control you wrote happens to cover it. For most Montreal companies the answer is Security criteria only, with Law 25 run as its own project alongside. The exception is an aerospace buyer who named the Privacy category in writing, which in Quebec is rare.

Where the two meet is the data inventory. What personal information you hold, where it lives and who touches it is the first artefact Law 25 expects of a Quebec organization, and the first thing a Montreal auditor asks for when scoping the system description. Build it once. If your customers include video games operators, or anyone acting for a health custodian in Quebec, extend that inventory to cover Law 25 before a questionnaire forces it.

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Who asks a Montreal company for a SOC 2 report

Local demand is shaped by artificial intelligence research, and in Montreal the request nearly always arrives as a schedule attached to a contract rather than as a rule. Somebody in sales forwards it, and for a Quebec supplier the report becomes a condition of closing. The deadline is therefore a customer's deadline. That one fact decides whether a Montreal company goes straight to a Type 2 or buys time with a Type 1, and the deadline back-calculator works out which is still reachable from today.

Buyers in aerospace tend to ask later in the cycle and in more detail, and buyers in video games more often send a questionnaire the report only partly answers. Ask which report type and which Trust Services Criteria before scoping anything. Companies around Montreal spend months on a Type 2 because the phrase "SOC 2" reached them second hand, when a Type 1 would have closed the artificial intelligence research contract.

What a SOC 2 examination costs from Montreal

Audit fees barely move by city, since assurance work is priced on engagement hours rather than Quebec wage rates. A firm quoting a Montreal client on Security criteria with one production environment lands in these Canadian dollar bands.

The examination is roughly a third of what a first SOC 2 costs a Montreal company. The rest is readiness support, a platform if you need one, a penetration test, and your own team's hours, which no Quebec firm will quote you. The cost breakdown takes all five lines apart. What does vary around Montreal is which firm you end up with. Practices in smaller Quebec markets often quote at the low end and know the local artificial intelligence research buyers well, while a national name carries recognition that some enterprise reviewers care about and costs several times more for the same opinion.

Shortlisting audit firms from Montreal

Send three firms one written scope: headcount, systems in scope, criteria, report type, and the date a customer in artificial intelligence research needs the report by. Then work through this list with each of them before anybody in Montreal signs anything.

• Who signs the opinion, and what has that partner audited that resembles a Montreal company selling into artificial intelligence research?
• Is the fieldwork done by the firm you contract with, or subcontracted? A Quebec practice that subcontracts should say so in writing.
• What is the renewal fee for years two and three, in Canadian dollars, before a Montreal client signs year one?
• Will the firm raise Law 25 on its own, or run an American playbook that never mentions Quebec or Law 25?
• How does it take evidence, and how long from the end of fieldwork to a report a buyer in aerospace will accept?

Walk away from a fixed price quoted before anyone asked what is in scope, and from any firm promising a clean opinion on an audit it has not performed. Keep readiness and audit with separate firms: independence is the rule, and a reviewer at a customer in aerospace who spots one firm on both sides will raise it mid-deal. The directory keeps the two categories apart for that reason, and how to compare firms without a ranking covers the rest of the Quebec shortlist. If a Montreal company is shopping for preparation rather than the examination, start instead with SOC 2 readiness consultants in Montreal, because it is a different purchase at a different price.

Three written quotes is the whole point of the exercise, and Montreal does not always hold three CPA practices willing to bid on a company your size. The firms that sign opinions for Montreal clients take the same engagements in Ottawa, Quebec City and Toronto, so widen the request before you settle for a shortlist of two.

What to do in the first week

1. Get the artificial intelligence research buyer's security schedule in writing and find the sentence naming the report type. Most Montreal projects are scoped from a relayed phrase instead.
2. Write down the systems in scope, and which Quebec premises, if any, an aerospace reviewer would expect tested.
3. Decide the criteria. Security only unless a customer in artificial intelligence research or aerospace named another category in writing.
4. Start the data inventory Law 25 expects. A Montreal auditor needs the same information for the system description.
5. Approach three CPA firms with that scope, and separately approach readiness help, since Law 25 and Law 25 work will not appear on an audit scope at all.

Common questions