Rhys Mendes

Rhys Mendes
Rhys Mendes, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada
Born
Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada
Alma materYork University (BA), University of Toronto (MA, PhD)
OccupationsEconomist, central banker, public servant

Rhys R. Mendes is a Canadian economist who has served as a Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada since 17 July 2023. He oversees the Bank’s economic and financial research, its analysis of international economic developments, and he serves as the G7/G20 Central Bank Deputy for Canada. He is a member of the Bank’s Governing Council, which is responsible for monetary policy and financial system stability. Mendes is the first non-white person to be appointed to the Bank of Canada’s interest-rate-setting Governing Council.[1][2][3]

Early life and education

Rhys Mendes was born in Richmond Hill, Ontario. He earned a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Economics from York University, and subsequently completed a Master’s and PhD in Economics at the University of Toronto. His doctoral dissertation is titled Information, Central Bank Communication, and Aggregate Fluctuations (2008). It analyzes imperfect-information models of the business cycle, and the interaction between monetary policy and central bank communications.[3][4]

Career

Early career

Mendes joined the Bank of Canada in 2004. He has held progressively more senior roles, becoming Deputy Managing Director of the Canadian Economic Analysis Department in 2013, Managing Director of Economic and Financial Research in 2016, and Managing Director of International Economic Analysis in 2017. In these positions he led work in macroeconomic modelling and international policy analysis, and contributed to the five-year reviews of Canada’s monetary policy framework.[3]

Assistant Deputy Minister

From 2021 until 2023, Mendes was on secondment to the Department of Finance Canada, where he was Assistant Deputy Minister of Finance for Economic Policy.[1][2][5] He served under former Deputy Minister of Finance Michael Sabia.

On 17 November 2022, Mendes appeared as a witness before the Public Order Emergency Commission examining the federal government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act during the 2022 Canada convoy protests. As Assistant Deputy Minister for Economic Policy, Mendes was called to explain Finance Canada’s assessment of the protests’ economic consequences.[5] In his testimony, Mendes stated that the border blockades had only a limited macroeconomic impact because they were short-lived and did not spread. However, Mendes emphasized that if the blockades had spread or persisted, they would have had a major impact on economic activity. He also noted that the reputational damage was already mounting.[5][6] Mendes’s evidence was referenced in the Commission’s final report as part of its review of the government’s economic rationale for invoking emergency powers.[7]

Deputy Governor

On 17 July 2023, Mendes succeeded Paul Beaudry as Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada, joining the Governing Council and assuming responsibility for the Bank’s research and international analysis.[2][8] Mendes also serves as the Bank of Canada's G7 and G20 Deputy and is an official member of the Bellagio Group.[3][9]

On 26 November 2024, Mendes delivered a speech entitled “Sticking the Landing – Keeping Inflation at 2%” to the Greater Charlottetown Area Chamber of Commerce. He highlighted the role of monetary policy in returning inflation to target following its post-pandemic surge.[10][11] On 2 October 2025, at the Ivey Business School in London, Ontario, Mendes delivered a speech titled “Underlying inflation: Separating the signal from the noise”, detailing the Bank’s method for assessing underlying inflation. He distinguished the general concept of underlying inflation from specific measures of core inflation and he noted that any core measure "however well designed, will, at times, send misleading signals."[12][13]

Written work

Mendes has written on a range of monetary policy topics, including:

  • The design of monetary policy frameworks.[14][15]
  • The zero lower bound on interest rates.[14][16]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Bank of Canada's Rhys Mendes Becomes First Non-White Deputy Governor". Bloomberg. 12 May 2023. Retrieved 29 August 2025.
  2. ^ a b c "Bank of Canada names longtime executive Mendes as deputy governor". Reuters. 12 May 2023. Retrieved 29 August 2025.
  3. ^ a b c d "Rhys R. Mendes". Bank of Canada. Archived from the original on 12 June 2025. Retrieved 31 August 2025.
  4. ^ Mendes, Rhys R. (2008). Information, Central Bank Communication, and Aggregate Fluctuations (PDF) (PhD thesis). University of Toronto.
  5. ^ a b c "Public Hearings Volume 25" (PDF). Public Order Emergency Commission. Retrieved 29 August 2025.
  6. ^ "Institutional Report – Department of Finance" (PDF). Public Order Emergency Commission. Department of Justice Canada. 5 April 2022. Retrieved 30 August 2025.
  7. ^ "Report of the Public Inquiry into the 2022 Public Order Emergency, Vol. 3" (PDF). Public Order Emergency Commission. 2023. Retrieved 29 August 2025.
  8. ^ "Rhys Mendes appointed Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada". Bank of Canada. 12 May 2023. Retrieved 29 August 2025.
  9. ^ "Current Composition of the Bellagio Group" (PDF). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. April 2025. Retrieved 31 August 2025.
  10. ^ "Sticking the landing: Keeping inflation at 2%". Bank of Canada. 26 November 2024. Retrieved 30 August 2025.
  11. ^ Gowling, Jordan (26 November 2024). "Bank of Canada warns of risks if inflation falls below 2%". Financial Post. Toronto. Retrieved 24 November 2025.
  12. ^ "Underlying inflation: Separating the signal from the noise". www.bankofcanada.ca. Retrieved 2025-10-04.
  13. ^ "Bank of Canada considers changes to core inflation measures". The Globe and Mail. Toronto. 2 October 2025. Retrieved 24 November 2025.
  14. ^ a b c Dorich, José; Labelle St-Pierre, Nicholas; Lepetyuk, Vadym; Mendes, Rhys R. (April 2018). "Could a Higher Inflation Target Enhance Macroeconomic Stability?". Bank of Canada. Retrieved 30 August 2025.
  15. ^ Dorich, José; Mendes, Rhys R.; Zhang, Yang (August 2021). "The Bank of Canada's "Horse Race" of Alternative Monetary Policy Frameworks: Some Interim Results from Model Simulations". Bank of Canada. Retrieved 30 August 2025.
  16. ^ a b Mendes, Rhys R.; Murchison, Stephen (November 13, 2014). "Should Forward Guidance Be Backward-Looking?" (PDF). Bank of Canada Review (Autumn 2014): 12–22.
  17. ^ Amano, Robert; Carter, Thomas J.; Mendes, Rhys R. (December 2016). "Comparing Forward Guidance and Neo-Fisherianism as Strategies for Escaping Liquidity Traps". Bank of Canada. Retrieved 30 August 2025.
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