Toni Gravelle (right), deputy governor, Bank of Canada, and Farrukh Suvankulov, Ph. D., regional director, Bank of Canada, toured Care for Newcomers in Red Deer on Oct. 10, 2024. (rdnewsNOW/Josh Hall)

By Josh Hall | @Vancan19

hearing regional perspectives

Putting a face to the Bank of Canada; deputy governor visits Red Deer

Oct 11, 2024 | 10:59 AM

The Bank of Canada is on a mission to understand regional perspectives on what Canadians are facing economically.

So says Toni Gravelle, a deputy governor with the Bank of Canada who has been in Red Deer this week meeting with businesses and agencies alike. On Thursday, Gravelle and colleagues toured Care for Newcomers, and Ubuntu-Mobilizing Central Alberta, among others.

Gravelle said the bank often bases its work on macro-data, from Statistics Canada, for example, but getting out and hearing thoughts from Canadians and newcomers alike, on the ground, offers a different and crucial lens into reality.

“We want to understand exactly what Canadians are facing and how newcomers are integrating into Canada; we’ve had a big surge of newcomers coming in, and that has affected our economy,” Gravelle said in an interview with rdnewsNOW.

“We want to know what their economic prospects involve as they integrate and as they get better at English. We want to know how that process works to inform our economic views.”

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It’s also key, he said, to see how newcomers, for instance, are or aren’t hitting the ground running in terms of their economic input.

The regional outreach, which began about two years ago, is in addition to the Bank of Canada’s quarterly business outlook survey — the most recent edition being for Q2 2024.

“We want to meet organizations so they can get a sense of what the Bank of Canada is, and put a face to an institution that is far away for most people, other than seeing it on their $20 bill,” he said.

There is good news with respect to what Gravelle has learned from visiting the Red Deer region, he shared.

He praised the region’s overall degree of innovation, saying the oil and gas sector is, “cutting edge,” and that lots of folks are investing in new technologies.

Toni Gravelle (right), deputy governor, Bank of Canada, and Farrukh Suvankulov, Ph. D., regional director, Bank of Canada, speak with Heidi Parades (left), ESL manager, and others, during a tour of Care for Newcomers in Red Deer on Oct. 10, 2024. (rdnewsNOW/Josh Hall)

He also heard about housing affordability, which, he says, is unique for Alberta in an affordability sense. Gravelle visited Red Deer Polytechnic where he learned that post-secondaries are trying very concertedly to tailor curriculums and entice students into trades and skills experiencing shortages.

So what’s it all mean for the average central Albertan or Canadian?

“Our objective in a big sense is to make sure the Canadian economy and financial system is working for all Canadians, and is growing to be more robust. How we do that is kind of narrow in that we try to target a low and stable level of inflation so people don’t have to work around it, worry about it, or plan against it,” Gravelle said.

“For example, if a big business wants to invest in a new building, and in the meantime we have high and variable inflation, they have to ask themselves what the building will cost at the end of the project? When inflation is low and stable, they can have more confidence in investing.”

The same goes for households, he explained, in that low inflation means individuals don’t have to worry as much about future salary increases.

“It all makes for a more vibrant and higher-growth economy, which again feeds back into making Canadians better off,” he said.

“We’re trying to get inflation, or that speed of price increase, down to around the two per cent range so that people can forget about it.”

According to Gravelle, the Bank of Canada has one tool — one he admits is blunt — to influence inflation.

That tool is the policy interest rate which sets interest rates across Canada.

“As we raise rates, we try to slow inflation; so when we raise rates, it slows the economy. When you have an overheated economy, it pushes up inflation because everyone is trying to buy the same goods and is competing,” he said.

“Right now, inflation is around our target of two per cent and we’re going to lower rates because we think they’re too high right now.”

Gravelle also met with stakeholders in Sylvan Lake and Samson Cree Nation, among others.

For individuals, businesses or agencies who wish to provide a regional perspective on an ongoing basis, they can contact Bank of Canada Regional Director Farrukh Suvankulov by emailing fsuvankulov@bankofcanada.ca.

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