Stephen Poloz gets racier as his farewell tour progresses: Don Pittis

In her mid-50s, the singer Cherkicked offLiving Proof: The Farewell Tourin Toronto back in June of 2002. Itwas a long farewell. Now in her 70s, the performer still takes to the stage, and her shows are racier than ever.

It's not clear whether Bank of Canada governor Stephen Polozwould have Cher'sstamina, but at least his long goodbye which continued with a speech and news conference in Vancouver yesterdayhas a deadline.

Perhaps a little like the singer of Gypsies Tramps and Thieves,as he counts down the months toward his June departure, the country's top central banker is getting saucier.

Racy (for a central banker)

Of course everything is relative. The latest outing by Poloz, who has often been forthright, could only be considered racy by the standards of a staid central banker.

But with comments that warned of the impact of a new Donald Trump presidency in the U.S., heapedopprobrium onCanadian premiersfor absurd trade barriers andnotedthe dangers of an explosion of uncertainty and flawed statistics, perhapsthe governor senses alightening of theyoke of decorumas the end of histerm approaches.

Some of the Canadian central banker'smost revealing remarks came in his "fireside chat" withBridgitte Anderson, CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, who congratulated Poloz for what has so far been a successful sevenyears. Such recognition ateach recent public appearance adds to the farewell tour feeling.

In fact, Poloz maintained that not only has the economy improved on his watch but that it continues to do very well, and that's despite a period of global uncertainty of the type that has led to this week's crash of a Ukrainian passenger aircraft in Iran that killed all 176 people on board.

He said uncertainty, especially over trade, has knocked a full percentage point off global economic growth that has gone for good.

Trump and exploding uncertainty

Effectively, he said, uncertainty duringthe Trump administration has "exploded higher," making companies reluctant to spend and invest. And Poloz said that uncertainty is not over yet.

"You know, if President Trump were re-elected, I don't think he would suddenly change the tools of how he operates, so I think we would be in for continued uncertainty," he told Anderson in response to a question about the effects on Canada of the coming U.S. election.

That said, he conceded that a vote against Trump could lead to uncertainty of a different kind, a seeming nod to the more left-leaning politicians who could win the Democratic Party nomination.

The startling thing about the Canadian economy, said Poloz, is that it has done so well. While he worries about the effect of a sudden downturn on consumers made vulnerable by too much borrowing, there are growing signs that foreign and domestic businesses are investing in the economy.

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But the country could do much better if the premierswould just get together and get rid of trade barriers and red tape within Canada that research shows have cut fourpercentage points off Canadian economic growth.

Toilet seat protectionism

"Take for example, in one province the construction worker's toilet seat must be an open front toilet seat,in another province it must be a closed front toilet seat. Seriously!"

Fixing issues like thatrather than making more cuts in interest rates would have a greater effect on Canadian productivity.

• Interprovincial free trade within 100 days? It's nothappening

And when it comes to measuring items like productivity Poloz insists there are increasing signs that Canada's statistical methods are flawed and out of date.

"As far as I can tell there's high productivity everywhere in Canada except in the statistics," he quipped. Some studies have shown what he called a missing twoper cent inproductivity readings.

The Canadian economy is changing and has grown quite different from the United States, said Poloz, and Canada's statistics have not caught up. While manufacturing and resourceextraction remain important to the economy, information technology services in Canada's increasingly knowledge-based economy arebigger andgrowing at eightper cent per annum.

While describing Statistics Canada as "the best statistics agency in the world," he says they need to be properly funded to keep up.

Despite repeated calls for rate cuts to boost the economy,the governor's intransigence in the face of repeated advice has so farproved correct. But there is still time for things to go wrong before the central banker's final exit.

Canadian singer and songwriter Neil Young who, like Cher, has about a decade on Poloz,takes a different view on farewell tours.

"When I retire, people will know, because I'll be dead," he's reported to have said.

Yesterday Poloz said that while he is stepping down as a central banker, he's not retiring. His wife, he says, wants him out of the house.

But unlike performers likeYoung or Cher, the real test of success for someone like Polozwill be,once he his has stepped down from his current job and the road show is really over,whether the machinery of the Bank of Canada keeps working just assmoothly in his absence.

Follow Don on Twitter @don_pittis