Martin announces new Governor of Bank Independent thinker Finance Minister Paul Martin's announcement Wednesday that David Dodge would succeed Gordon Thiessen as Governor of the Bank of Canada came as a bit of a shock to senior officials at the bank. They assumed that Martin would follow a tradition as old as the bank itself, and appoint a governor from within their ranks. The odds-on favourite was Malcolm Knight, the current senior deputy governor. But in his choice of Dodge, an outsider, Martin opted for the candidate he knew best. Dodge was his deputy at Finance during the war on the deficit, which Martin handily won. If Martin was the commander-in-chief of that war, Dodge was the general who mapped out the strategy. Naturally, the first question put to the new governor was whether he would maintain the bank's independence from his old boss. To those who know Dodge, the answer was never in doubt. Throughout his career, he has shown himself to be no bureaucrat, but a ``public servant'' in the truest sense of the term. A brilliant mind and an academic inclination have served him well as someone who sees government as a vehicle for making Canada a better place. And so it will be at the bank. He is admirably equipped to walk that fine line between protecting the the Bank of Canada's independence, and absorbing and using the advice of others. He will continue to do what he believes to be best for the country where monetary policy is concerned. As he has said, that means being vigilant against inflation. But he will also bring a new kind of independence to the central bank. The Bank of Canada is a very insular institution, whose veterans tend to acquire a somewhat institutional point of view. The bank's major challenge is to squeeze as much growth as possible out of the economy without letting inflation out of the bottle. On the question of when growth ignites inflation, Dodge, a Princeton-trained economist, might well challenge the bank's rigidly held institutional view. We are confident that Dodge will bring some new ideas to the central bank. He is also likely to encourage the same kind of vigorous debate at the bank that he was known for at Finance. There can be little doubt that his legendary intellectual battles with Martin helped produce their highly successful assault on the deficit. As he takes up his new responsibilities, we wish Dodge the same success