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Bank of Canada Loses Another Policy Maker With Patterson’s Exit

Bank of Canada Loses Another Policy Maker With Patterson’s Exit

(Bloomberg) -- The Bank of Canada is losing a second deputy governor in 12 months, in what may be the final changes to its main policy-making body before Governor Stephen Poloz’s mandate ends next year.

Deputy Governor Lynn Patterson, one of six members of the council overseeing monetary policy, will step down July 19, the Ottawa-based central bank said Wednesday in a statement. The search for a new deputy governor will come in “due course.”

Bank of Canada Loses Another Policy Maker With Patterson’s Exit

Patterson’s departure comes a full year before Poloz’s own seven-year mandate expires, and will give the Bank of Canada time to find her replacement without overlapping with any search for a new governor. It took the central bank about six months last year to replace Deputy Governor Sylvain Leduc with academic Paul Beaudry.

Patterson is one of two women on the Bank of Canada’s governing council, along with Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Wilkins. The departing policy maker was one of Poloz’s first hires after he became governor in 2013, joining the bank as a special adviser and representative to Canada’s financial community. Patterson, who has held positions at Bank of America Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in a capital markets career that spanned more than two decades, was promoted to deputy governor in 2014.

“Lynn has had a tremendous influence on the Bank during her tenure,” Poloz said in the statement. She “has played a key role in advancing important capital market initiatives.”

Patterson is leaving as the Bank of Canada indicates it is probably in the middle of a prolonged pause on interest rates, after raising borrowing costs five times since 2017.

In addition to Poloz, Wilkins and Beaudry, the bank’s governing council includes Tim Lane, who has been in that position since 2009, and Lawrence Schembri, who was appointed deputy governor in 2013.

To contact the reporter on this story: Theophilos Argitis in Ottawa at targitis@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Theophilos Argitis at targitis@bloomberg.net, Stephen Wicary, Erik Hertzberg

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