Meet The Liberal Hit List (Part 3 John Crow + Gordon Thiessen)

Andrew Coyne May 5th, 2000.

"Give Gordon Thiessen credit: the man has impeccable timing. In 1994, you'll recall, Mr.
Thiessen stepped into the office of governor of the Bank of Canada over the lifeless body of John Crow, whose appointment the incoming Chretien government chose not to renew.

Mr. Crow is well known as the man who tamed inflation, albeit at the cost of a punishing recession. With a year to go in his seven-year term, Mr. Thiessen has announced he will not seek reappointment -- perhaps to avoid the same fate.

Mr. Thiessen was fortunate indeed to have had Mr. Crow to do the heavy lifting for him, especially since his policies and outlook do not diverge in any marked degree from those of his predecessor. Inflation having been thrown to the mat, Mr. Thiessen had only to ensure it did not get up again. By and large he has done that, and by and large he has enjoyed the support of the government, at least until now.

Which only underscores the scandal of Mr. Crow's mistreatment. It would be one thing for the Liberals to have dismissed the governor over a genuine policy difference. Yet, as we later discovered, they had no more objection to Mr. Crow's staunchly anti-inflationary monetary stance than they did to free trade, or the GST, or cutting spending, though they campaigned vigorously against all of them. Mr. Crow was dismissed, rather, for being insufficiently deferential to Liberal backbenchers; Mr. Thiessen was retained on the grounds that he was not Mr. Crow."