Replacement announced for OSFI superintendent Julie Dickson

Canada’s Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Julie Dickson, will be replaced June 29 by Jeremy Rudin, assistant deputy minister of the financial sector policy branch of the federal finance department, the federal government announced Friday.

Dickson has led the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) since June 2007, when she was appointed for a seven-year term, after serving eight months as acting superintendent. She “helped guide Canada through the 2008-2009 global financial crisis,” the finance ministry noted in a release.

OSFI’s mandates include regulating insurance carriers as well as banks and private pension plans subject to federal oversight. While provinces regulate the licensing of P&C carriers, OSFI determines their financial soundness through tests such as the minimum capital test (MCT) and the branch adequacy of assets test (BAAT).

Dickson joined OSFI in April 1999. She was OSFI’s assistant superintendent of the regulation sector from January 2000 through June 2006. She was then appointed deputy superintendent, followed by acting superintendent in October 2006.

Rudin, who has a PdD in economics from Stanford University, taught economics at University of British Columbia and Queen’s University before joining the public service. He joined the economic and fiscal policy branch of the federal finance department in 1993 and was later director of funds management in the Bank of Canada’s financial markets department. He returned to the finance department in 2006.

Rudin “has extensive direct experience in the oversight of financial institutions, financial system stability and financial markets,” Finance Minister Joe Oliver stated in a release. “He played an important role in Canada’s response to the global financial crisis. These skills and knowledge will be an asset in this critical position.”

As assistant deputy minister, the finance department noted, Rudin “was instrumental in the development of a range of extraordinary policy measures to support access to credit during the global financial crisis and other financial sector policy issues.”