A woman scorned

Well, that's a bit of a surprise!  Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced this morning that the next Governor of the Bank of Canada will be Tiff Macklem, a former Senior Deputy Governor of the Bank.  He will replace Stephen Poloz when Poloz's seven-year term expires on June 2.

There's no doubt that Macklem is well-qualified for the job, as a Bank of Canada veteran.  Indeed, he was the prohibitive favourite to move into the top spot back in 2013, only to find himself pipped at the post by the relatively unknown Poloz.  Since then he has been leading the B-school at the University of Toronto. Macklem played a key role in guiding the Bank through the global financial crisis a decade ago, and this experience is clearly at the top of Morneau's mind, given the even more challenging circumstances in which the country and the Bank now find themselves.

The reason the selection of Macklem is a surprise is that the Bank's current Senior Deputy Governor, Carolyn Wilkins, appeared to have the inside track here. (Apologies for all the horse racing metaphors!)  She has had a much higher profile than any of her predecessors in the job, including Macklem himself, and has acquitted herself well.  Indeed, she has been the public face of the Bank to almost the same degree as Governor Poloz himself for at least the last two years, and we can speculate that the only person almost as disappointed as Ms Wilkins today may in fact be Poloz.  And perhaps it is crass to mention it, but it might have been expected that Ms Wilkins' gender would be to her advantage here, given Prime Minister Trudeau's self-proclaimed (albeit now rather tarnished) feminism.

As this article from the National Post suggests, it is becoming a tradition that the inside candidate for the top job at the Bank never gets it:  the last three governors, Poloz,  Mark Carney and David Dodge, were all outsiders at the time they were appointed.  Ms Wilkins must be considering her options, but  she is unlikely to resign immediately, given the extraordinary challenges the Bank is facing.  Once the present crisis passes, it would be no surprise to see her taking up a more lucrative role outside Ottawa -- and who knows, when Macklem's term expires in 2027, her turn may yet come around.