Central bank official speaks to chamber, but not media
Well, this is curious. Calista Cheung, the Bank of Canada’s regional director for B.C. and the Yukon, was in Kelowna Friday, but she wouldn’t speak with the media.
The only reason given was it’s the central bank’s policy.
This newspaper interviewed and photographed previous Bank of Canada regional director Farid Novin for several stories when he visited the Okanagan on speaking engagements prior to his 2014 retirement from the bank.
Cheung was in the Okanagan for a business roundtable on the economy organized by the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce at the Kelowna Yacht Club.
It looked like a dozen chamber members and business leaders attended the breakfast roundtable and questionand-answer session.
When The Okanagan Weekend reporter showed up at the end of the session, he was told Cheung couldn’t speak to the media as a matter of policy. He was introduced to her, shook her hand and she smiled, but that was it.
If allowed, we could have asked how the Bank of Canada’s increase of its rate, and thus a bump in mortgage interest rates by lending banks, will impact the economy, homeowners and potential homeowners.
We also could have asked about the severity of record-high household debt and the impact of B.C.’s higher minimum wage.