Seeking Financial Stability: The Best Role for the Bank of Canada

Since the 2008/09 upheaval and panic in financial institutions and beyond, each country has had a responsibility to re-examine its regulatory and supervisory processes and establish a clear and focussed policy framework for preventing threats to financial stability. Some countries have seen the establishment of new structures, such as the US Financial Stability Oversight Council, and the allocation of new responsibilities for macro-prudential oversight. Perhaps reflecting ongoing satisfaction that the Canadian financial system was not an epicenter of this upheaval, perhaps also reflecting uncertainty about how to introduce changes, including where the ensuing roles and responsibilities for macro-prudential action would reside, Ottawa has not yet shared with the public any views regarding such a framework. At the same time, the C.D. Howe Institute has provided a forum for a number of studies covering various aspects and points of view as to how matters might best be organized to provide such a framework, and this Commentary continues in that vein. But unlike other studies, which have addressed in some detail the various options for the kind of formal structure that Ottawa might need to put in place, the central focus here is on the best role for the Bank of Canada in light of its monetary responsibilities. It emphasizes that through a record of consistent achievement over many years, the Bank has established a remarkable general understanding and acceptance of its monetary policy framework – one centered on sustained low, and therefore stable, inflation as a national financial anchor. This Commentary concludes there is no particular virtue in adding to the Bank’s responsibilities further, and quite distinct, policies that will stretch that credibility. Given the high value of what the Bank is already responsible for, it should be particularly hesitant about taking on new responsibilities on such a broad, and as yet extremely ill-defined, policy front. Financial stability is an area where the likely policy tools are markedly different from those normally involved in monetary policy. Also, given a longstanding continuing federal financial regulatory establishment, the channels of responsibility and authority for those tools promise to be somewhat diffuse. Nonetheless, in line with both history and good sense the Bank should always be there, supplying its particular expertise and judgement to help out, while at the same time maintaining its monetary policy independence of action.