OTTAWA — Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says he’s working to have the head of Canada’s central bank become the world’s top banking regulator.
Flaherty said Monday he has taken steps to promote Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney as the next head of the Financial Stability Board, which is responsible for crafting new global banking regulations.
The minister said he hopes the appointment is made next month when the current head of the Financial Stability Board moves to the European Central Bank.
“I would hope that that would happen,” Flaherty said at an event in his riding in Whitby, Ont. east of Toronto.
“I certainly support and have taken steps to encourage this to happen, and we’ll see what happens. He certainly is well qualified for the job.”
Taking on the added responsibility would not require Carney to leave the Bank of Canada before his seven-year term expires in 2015.
Carney has been a strong advocate of new, stringent regulations for banks, a position which according to news reports got him in a behind-closed-door dustup last month with the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, one of the biggest commercial banks in the United States.
The confrontation with JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon at a private meeting during the recent IMF conference in Washington did nothing to deter Carney from criticizing banking executives a few days later for fighting new regulations.
The new rules would require banks to set aside more of their capital, a move Dimon told Carney would kill jobs, according to a report in the Financial Times of London.
It is not often Canadians are considered for the top job of global financial institutions, but Carney — named in 2010 to Time magazine’s list of 25 most influential people — appears to be an exception.
He has been mentioned as a possible a candidate for the Financial Stability Board as far back as the spring, and earlier this year also appeared in a London bookmaker’s list for the International Monetary Fund’s top job, which eventually went to France’s Christine Lagarde.
Last year, Carney was named chairman to a committee on financial stability at the Bank for International Settlements, of which the FSB is a part.