Conservatives seek audit of Bank of Canada bond-buying program
BNN Bloomberg
The corroded relationship between the Bank of Canada and the main opposition Conservatives took a turn for the worse after a former leader of the party launched an effort to increase parliamentary oversight of the central bank.
The corroded relationship between the Bank of Canada and the main opposition Conservatives took a turn for the worse after a former leader of the party launched an effort to increase parliamentary oversight of the central bank.
Andrew Scheer, who led the Conservatives between 2017 and 2019, introduced a private member’s bill Wednesday that would remove the Bank of Canada’s exemption from scrutiny by the nation’s auditor general.
Speaking in the House of Commons, the Saskatchewan lawmaker said the move would allow for “performance audits,” citing the central-bank’s purchasing of government and corporate bonds during the COVID-19 crisis.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Bank of Canada has massively expanded the money supply in Canada,” Scheer said. “As a result, we’re seeing runaway inflation.”
While private member’s bills have low probabilities of passage, the move underscores the extent to which relations between the central bank and the Conservatives have become frayed. Inflation running at three-decade highs appears to be only stoking those tensions.
In 2020, Conservative lawmaker Pierre Poilievre -- a front-runner to become new leader of the party after last week’s ouster of Scheer’s successor, Erin O’Toole -- claimed the central bank’s asset-purchase program risked turning into an “ATM” for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s political agenda.
