National Post (National Edition)
Finance’s No. 2 joins growing Canadian club in London.
Ministry’s No. 2 joining BlackRock
The lure of London has drawn another high-ranking public servant away from Canada, with investment management firm BlackRock, Inc. announcing it has poached the Canadian Finance Ministry’s No. 2 man to its U.K. office.
Outgoing Department of Finance Associate Deputy Minister Jean Boivin is scheduled to start his new job as deputy chief investment strategist with the BlackRock Investment Institute on Sept. 15, according to a release from the firm. If he were so inclined, Mr. Boivin could get together with former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney — now governor of the Bank of England — and Nigel Wright, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff who moved to London to rejoin Onex Corp. as managing director.
The institute provides BlackRock’s portfolio managers with insights on sovereign risk and the macro investment outlook.
“I’m excited to be able to bring my experience and ideas to BlackRock as it executes on its mission of delivering exceptional investment performance and deep capital market insights to its clients,” Mr. Boivin said in the statement.
Ian Lee, a business professor at Carleton University who used to work for the Bank of Montreal, said there’s no grand conspiracy by the Brits to lure away our top bureaucrats.
Mr. Boivin’s reasons for changing jobs are likely the obvious: London is a great city, it’s an international finance hub, he is almost certainly going to make a lot more money and the move pads his resume should he wish to return to an even bigger job in Ottawa, Mr. Lee said.
“It’s a very strategic and smart move,” Mr. Lee said. “If he has ambitions to become governor of the Bank of Canada one day, he’s a very smart man. He can read the tea leaves.”
Mr. Boivin is leaving his position with the Finance Ministry less than two years after starting in October 2012 following a four-year stint at the Bank of Canada where he was deputy governor. He also served as Canada’s representative to the Group of Seven, the Group of 20 and the Financial Stability Board.
Don Drummond, a professor at Queen’s University who has also held the associate deputy minister position at the Department of Finance that Mr. Boivin is leaving, said it’s good for high-ranking public servants in economic portfolios to get private sector and even academic experience.
“They’re all completely different and they all round you out to some degree,” Mr. Drummond said of working in the public, private and academic spheres. “I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future we see [Mr. Boivin] come back as a deputy minister of finance or a senior deputy governor [of the Bank of Canada].”
Mr. Drummond said Mr. Boivin was likely recently under consideration for both of those high-rank- ing positions, which went to Paul Rochon and Carolyn Wilkins, respectively. In addition, when Julie Dickson stepped down as head of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Canada’s top bank regulator, some observers speculated Mr. Boivin would replace her — but the job went to his former Department of Finance colleague Jeremy Rudin.
It’s easy to see the appeal of a high-paying private sector job in a world-class city, Mr. Lee said. He said the Harper government is putting a higher premium on private sector experience and it’s becoming less common for career public servants to get the top jobs in economic portfolios.
The real question is why we don’t see more bureaucrats in departments like the Finance Ministry, the Canada Revenue Agency and Industry Canada hopping on planes to London, Mr. Lee said.
“Go to London, have the time of your life, make a lot of money, then come back to Canada,” Mr. Lee said. “I think the surprise is we haven’t lost more.”