Now that the Bank of England has lured celebrity central banker Mark Carney away from the Bank of Canada (BoC), hopefully monetary policy in Canada can return to its roots as the stomping ground of boring, old bureaucrats in bad suits.

Perhaps the only thing more baffling than the inexorable rise of household indebtedness over the past few years is the cult of personality that has built up around Carney. Relatively young and smartly presiding over the soundest banking system in the developed world, Carney has become something of a rock star.

Indeed, the market clings so closely to his every utterance that it frequently embarrasses itself by overreacting to the slightest hint at the direction of his affections – forcing him to clarify his words and the market to retreat sheepishly. It’s uncomfortably reminiscent of the cult that existed around the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan, before he was entirely discredited by the financial crisis.

Yet, it’s not clear what Carney has done to merit this level of deference. He hasn’t proven infallible. During his tenure, the BoC has gotten economic forecasts wrong and has been forced to reverse direction on monetary policy.

Carney has enjoyed the good fortune of presiding over the BoC at a time when the Canadian banking system has distinguished itself – but only because it was not rendered insolvent by the financial crisis, as happened to many of the biggest banks in the U.S. and Europe. The BoC aided its standing by slashing interest rates and promising extraordinary liquidity at the height of the crisis; however, other central banks around the world did the same thing, so it’s hard to understand why Carney has become so revered.

Don’t get us wrong – Carney has done a fine job. He clearly is exceptionally smart, and he’s proven to be a capable central banker. It’s the idolatry we can do without. And now that he’s moving on, here’s hoping that his replacement comes from the bland, boring bosom of bureaucracy. We don’t need another central banker that sends pulses racing; a reliably dull wallflower will do just fine.

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