American Canadian Underwater Certifications

The 'Association of Canadian Underwater Councils' was formed in 1969 by several large [Recreational diving|recreational] scuba diving clubs represented regionally by provincial underwater councils. By a tie-breaker vote, it was decided that the Association would also become a diver certification agency that would be democratically controlled by the instructor members, following the example of NAUI. In the late '70s and early '80s, the Association fell on hard times as a result of incompetent management and an antiquated training system. In the mid-1980s, the problems were corrected and the training system revamped with considerable volunteer assistance from members in Ontario and Quebec. In 1986, however, the then elected President and vice-President from Ontario conspired to personally exploit the resurgence of ACUC. They implemented a covert plan to take private ownership of ACUC following an earlier manouvre that isolated and drove away the member federation from Quebec. (The Quebec diving federation, known by the french acronym FQAS, was a prominent member of ACUC. The FQAS director, Francois Hamel, was suspicious of the motives of the President and vice-President from Ontario, and would have blocked the privitization had FQAS remained a member of ACUC. FQAS decided to separate and create its own training materials which are now used by the francophone CMAS federation - CMAS Quebec - based in Montreal)

Thus without general membership participation or the provision for dissenting opinions, ACUC was registered as the 'American and Canadian Underwater Certification, International'. Before this questionable privatization was implemented, ACUC had represented CMAS training in Canada, specializing primarily in entry-level diver and scuba instructor certifications. The former vice-President R. Cronkwright soon bought out the President's interest, and appointed himself President. Thereafter, ACUC's membership in CMAS was terminated due to standards violations and irregularities in training. (The CMAS instructor credentials issued by ACUC have since expired, and are now null and void) Cronkwright became chronically arthritic and decided to transfer ownership to another partner he had acquired. As part of an agreement with the ACUC owner based in Spain, Cronkwright's daughter continues to issue ACUC certifications from her home near Hamilton, Ontario.cite web
url=http://www.acuc.es/webacuc3_archivos/Page960.htm
title=History of ACUC International
accessdate=2007-12-07
publisher=ACUC International]

References