Finance committee  I'd be pleased to. First, I'm certainly not, and I don't think anyone else is, advocating a constitutional battle by forcing it on any province. It will be a voluntary proposal, and those provinces that want to joint in will because it is in their self-interest. That's the first argument.

Finance committee  I thought it was a terrible idea. I thought it indicated at that point why CMHC needs to be regulated by another authority, perhaps the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. I think any mortgage insurance company that will go to zero down or a 40-year amortization has demonstrated that they do not understand the mortgage market.

Finance committee  I completely endorse it. My criticism was at the micro-end, if you will; that is, at the individual mortgage end. You're facilitating huge increases in losses. David Dodge's criticism is at the macroeconomic end, and it is also very compelling. He's saying that by reducing the down payment required when the economy is rising and charging forward, you're throwing gasoline on the fire and making the economy move towards if not hyper-inflation then much stronger inflation, and you should be doing exactly the opposite at that period.

Finance committee  Absolutely. In fact, David Dodge suggested that and urged that, and that is one of the things I'm recommending to the committee, and that's why I think CMHC needs outside scrutiny by a government agency such as OSFI.

Finance committee  I draw your attention to the right-hand graph, which shows the securitization. The yellow is for subprime and the green is for non-conforming mortgages, which is another polite word for bad mortgages. You can see they were about one half of the approximately $2 trillion in mortgages written.

Finance committee  I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me. I'd also like to thank Mr. Pagé and his able staff for supporting me at the last minute with translation. I am the MBA program director at the Sprott School of Business. However, throughout the seventies and early eighties I was the loan manager, mortgage manager, and commercial credit officer directly across the street from the West Block in the Bank of Montreal building.