Yahoo Finance Is Stephen Poloz the Wayne Gretzky of Canada’s economy?
Stephen Poloz wants to be the Wayne Gretzky of Canada’s economy.
The Bank of Canada governor, known for employing quirky metaphors, appeared to borrow from the iconic fatherly advice given to the Great One to explain the difficulty of making policy decisions today for tomorrow’s economy.
“In hockey, we must pass the puck not at the feet of our teammate, but to where he or she will be when the puck arrives,” Poloz said in a prepared speech in Montreal on Thursday. “Actions we take today will have their ultimate effects only in the next couple of years.”
He cited the impact of higher interest rates on heavily-indebted Canadians, how housing markets will react to steeper borrowing costs and stricter mortgage rules, global trade risk, and waning business investment among the unknowns complicating the Bank’s models.
Of course, Walter Gretzky actually told his son to, “Skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.”
The quote has become somewhat of a cliche in corporate circles. Business leaders including Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett have used the phrase to emphasize the importance of having an eye towards the future.
While Wayne Gretzky relied on instinct to read plays on the ice, the Bank is sticking with data to guide the path of its benchmark rate.
Poloz has held interest rates at 1.75 per cent since last October. On Thursday, he committed to remaining “decidedly data-dependent as the domestic and international situations evolve.”
The Bank has raised rates five times since mid-2017.
Thursday’s speech was not the first time Poloz leaned on stereotypically Canadian, or downright off-the-wall metaphors to explain the state of the economy.
In 2014, he compared a box of old hockey cards to the impact of surging oil prices.
“You’ve got a box of old hockey cards in the basement, right? Everybody does. What if in that box you’ve got a Chris Kunitz card from his rookie days? Hey, now that the Regina native is an Olympic gold medallist and two-time Stanley Cup winner, that card is suddenly worth a lot – and you have the incentive you need to go dig it out of the basement,” he said in a speech. “With the average world price of oil over the past decade more than double that of the previous three decades, Canada’s resources are suddenly worth a lot – and we have the incentive we need to go dig them out of the ground.”
In that same speech, he likened innovation in the manufacturing sector to how “your favourite maple tree looks different every spring,” and said regional and sectoral economic disparities can be like Canadian weather, “hot in the Okanagan, bone-chilling cold in the Prairies and moderate in the Maritimes.”
In a 2013 speech at the Vancouver Board of Trade, Poloz compared tapering monetary stimulus to a “pot of simmering spaghetti sauce.”
The next interest rate announcement is scheduled for March 6. Stay tuned to see what Poloz is going to say next.
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