Canada is the only G7 country to sell off all its gold reserves. Why?

Talk to any gold bug long enough, and eventually you’ll hear the same indignant lament: The Bank of Canada was foolish to sell off its gold holdings over the years, leaving it as the only G7 country without any of the shiny metal in its reserves. The staggering surge in bullion prices—gold topped US$3,815 per ounce in late September, up more than 40% over the past year and double where it was five years ago—has only reinforced that sentiment.

Indeed, if the Bank of Canada still held the same amount of gold it did in 1965—around 32.9 million ounces—that stash would now effectively equal the value of all of Canada’s international reserves, at roughly US$125.5 billion.

The Bank of Canada unloaded the last gold coins in its reserves in 2016, but the Bank began the process in the 1970s, argui