Canada's Biggest Influence

When the former governor of the Bank of Canada speaks, ministers, bureaucrats, business leaders, and the media listen.

To my mind, the single most influential Canadian today is David Dodge. He is certainly highly influential in elite policy circles, and influence there profoundly shapes to what ends political power is wielded.

Dodge is the former Governor of the Bank of Canada, and former federal Deputy Minister of Finance among a smorgasbord of senior bureaucratic positions. Today he hangs his hat as a senior adviser at law firm Bennett Jones, and at Queen’s University where he is a very engaged Chancellor.

When the gravel-voiced Dodge speaks, ministers, bureaucrats, business leaders and the media all listen intently.

Over the last year or so, Dodge has been preaching the need for Chretien- Martin early 1990s style fiscal restraint (read: deep spending cuts). We must, we are told, bite the bullet again in the face of an ageing society, slowing potential economic growth, and inexorably rising health care costs. While these themes are not new, they have been shaped into a particularly compelling narrative against the recent background of rising government debts and deficits.

I heard Dodge speak several months ago, and have heard distinct echoes of his line of argument ever since. A new conventional wisdom dominates the editorial pages and speeches by federal and provincial ministers of finance. Despite a slowing recovery and still very high unemployment, fiscal austerity will be very much the order of the day in the coming round of federal and provincial budgets.

I like David Dodge. He is super-experienced, super-smart without being arrogant, and likes a debate. I also think he is unduly pessimistic about the future, and setting the stage for another lost decade in terms of social progress.

I hope he reads a critical commentary I have written on the call for restraint, to be published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in the near future, but can only dream of wielding even a small fraction of his influence.