Finance committee  I've already discussed the consumer insolvency data. The situation is more or less the same for mortgage payment defaults. We've seen an increase in recent months, but the level is similar to what it was before the pandemic.

Finance committee  I have those statistics. The Bank of Canada, in its “Financial System Review”, has them publicly. As of February, 2023, the share of the stock and mortgages that had variable payments was 9%. The share that had variable rate fixed payments was 17%, and the rest were fixed rates.

Finance committee  If we add up the two variable shares I gave you, 17% plus 9% is 26%, so 26% is variable rate.

Finance committee  Those data we don't have. Different financial institutions have released some of this data in their regulatory filings. It's just kind of publicly reported in the press.

Finance committee  Thank you for your question.

Finance committee  I believe that about 80% of household debt is mortgages. To the extent that you think of that debt as different from other debt because it's linked to an asset that appreciates, yes, what you're suggesting is reasonable. That doesn't mean that it's all—

Finance committee  That doesn't mean, obviously, that there are no risks involved with housing debt and housing assets. House prices can fall.

Finance committee  Thank you for your question. In fact, there is definitely a link between rising interest rates and house prices. We've already seen house prices decline by 15% or 16% from early 2022 until this past spring. That's already happened, but it seems that the real estate market has stabilized.

Finance committee  We don't have the necessary data to answer that question. I think you should put it to the Bank of Canada or the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions.

Finance committee  That's right.

Finance committee  One of the things that I'd point to is net wealth—so assets minus debt. Household net wealth as a share of income is well above its prepandemic level. In particular, housing equity—your home value minus the debt you owe on your home—is at high levels as well, higher than in history, higher than prepandemic.

Finance committee  Yes, that's correct.

Finance committee  Mortgage arrears in particular remain very low. They're pretty much near all-time lows. There are different metrics of it, but the Bank of Canada publishes some data publicly. In the first quarter of this year, 0.12% of mortgages were in arrears, well below the prepandemic 2015 to 2019 average of 0.23%.

Finance committee  There are a number of factors. One is that household finances overall are fairly healthy. They benefited from strong income and strong labour markets over the past few years, a build up of savings and strong asset price growth. By a lot of metrics, household balance sheets are in better shape than they were prepandemic, so that's helping households handle the impact of elevated inflation and elevated interest rates.