Bank of Canada names experts to assess its internal review of pandemic policy actions

OTTAWA — The Bank of Canada has named three experts that will assess its internal review of the central bank’s policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The experts are Pablo Hernández de Cos, former governor of the Bank of Spain, Kristin J. Forbes, a former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee and Trevor Tombe, an economics professor at the University of Calgary.

Bank of Canada deputy governor Sharon Kozicki announced in June that the central bank would undertake a review aimed at laying out lessons learned from the bank’s actions.

In March 2020, the Bank of Canada cut its key interest rate to near-zero in response to the economic shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and signalled that rates would stay exceptionally low for a long time.