I would say--and I will go back to this issue--that this is the issue: our ability to conduct purchase and resale agreements. I know it sounds very dry and arcane, but we have less flexibility to provide liquidity in the system, at times of some stress but not extreme stress, than the ECB does or the Federal Reserve does in the provision of these types of operations.
I want to underscore a couple of things about these operations. First, as we've discussed--but I really think it needs to be emphasized--we take haircuts, so we give out less than the value, and that's to protect our balance sheet. Second, the way we conduct these is through auctions, so there is price discovery. It's competitive. People have to bid. Why is that valuable? First, we get the best price, obviously; but second, we learn a lot from these auctions in terms of what the conditions are.
As I think everybody around this table and in the financial markets is aware, some unusual things have been happening since August in the money markets and the term money markets. It's one thing to provide liquidity, but we also have to start isolating these problems and making sure they can be addressed better.
So if we are restricted, as we are today in terms of the range of debt instruments against which we can conduct these operations, we're restricted in terms of the amount of information we can glean and how effective we can be in addressing these problems.
To go back to where we started, with Mr. Mulcair on the cost to banks, these problems are raising the cost of funds for banks, and they're ultimately going to raise the cost of borrowing for Canadians.