Finance committee  Yes. The biggest thing this government could do is reassess and review that portfolio insurance. Just changing that one dynamic itself, going back and allowing portfolio insurance so that monoline lenders can provide refinancing, would make a tremendous improvement and a huge dif

Finance committee  It is.

Finance committee  Yes, you've nailed it bang on. Unfortunately these changes make it much more difficult for our monoline lenders, the lenders who actually develop and keep a competitive landscape. There's an inability to refinance, or if they can refinance, they have to do it at a substantially h

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Absolutely.

Finance committee  I'll take that one. I think a pause in the range of 12 to 18 months to review the existing changes would be prudent. I want to comment on one of the comments you made. You talked about the high debt load of the Canadian consumer. About 73% of the Canadian consumer high debt loa

Finance committee  As Gary just mentioned a few minutes ago, back in April, Vancouver started coming off month after month. I think the tax on the vacant properties in Vancouver was very prudent. I don't even necessarily disagree with the foreign homebuyers tax. Certainly in those large urban centr

Finance committee  For many of the changes in the past, we've been consulted via associations that have worked with the Department of Finance. Prior to this previous government, our association and our industry had a very good working relationship with the Department of Finance, with Ottawa, and wi

Finance committee  No, we were not.

Finance committee  Most stakeholders in the Canadian housing market—realtors associations, monoline lenders, the two secondary insurers in Canada, and the large distribution networks were notified via the media announcement.

Finance committee  I don't know that they necessarily had a positive impact on Vancouver and Toronto. A lot of these policy changes really impacted first-time homebuyers. A first-time homebuyer today isn't a 19- or 20-year-old kid trying to trick the bank into giving them a mortgage loan. The profi

Finance committee  Sixty per cent of Dominion Lending Centres is owned by a publicly traded company. It is one company in a portfolio of many.

Finance committee  I don't understand the question.

Finance committee  I think if you look at the mortgage landscape in Canada and any of the publicly traded companies, especially the monoline lenders, you will see that they have had severe pressure, and some of them have had much short-selling pressure over the past 12 months. I don't necessarily s

Finance committee  If that happens, all you're going to have is the big five chartered banks in the country, and you're going to have devastation among monoline lenders and credit unions in the country. You're going to take away the entire focus around free trade and the competitive nature. By doin