(Image source: The Hour )     BY ZACH TOOMBS     For the first time in the Bank of England’s 318-year history, a non-Brit is taking the helm of the United Kingdom’s chief financial regulator.   Mark Carney , current head of the Bank of Canada, was announced as the Bank of England’s next governor Monday. Carney’s been widely praised for his role in steering Canada through the worldwide economic recession with no taxpayer-funded bailouts and with a strong recovery.   Chancellor George Osborne , who oversees the U.K. treasury, made the hiring decision. And on the BBC , he sung Carney’s praises.   “I think Mark Carney is the outstanding central bank governor of his generation in the world. And I think we have literally the best person in the world to do this job.”   According to the U.K.’s Independent , Carney beat out a homegrown favorite candidate for the position, Paul Tucker , who currently serves as the Bank of England’s number two. Carney originally refused the job offer, but Osborne was reportedly persistent.   As the Bank of England’s next governor, Carney will become one of the U.K.’s highest-paid public officials — taking in 624,000 pounds each of his five years in office. That’s more than twice what current governor Sir Mervyn King makes.   The Guardian says, although the media is almost unanimously saying Carney’s worth the money, there are cracks in his image and trans-Atlantic differences he’ll have to grapple with.   “Carney has no hands-on experience of supervising banks, which in Canada is the job of a separate institution … Signs of a housing bubble are emerging in Canada, and there are those who say Carney is getting out just in time.”   Although he’s Canadian, Carney does have some relation to the U.K. His wife is a British-Canadian national, and his children have dual citizenship. He says he himself plans to apply for British citizenship before he takes control of the Bank of England next summer.