Obviously, we are not directly responsible for ratings agencies. Generally speaking, as regards the commercial paper crisis, there were problems with ratings agencies. Commercial paper was greatly lacking in transparency. Certain structured products were very opaque, and few people knew what they truly were. Ratings agencies were specifically assessing what we call credit risk, and not liquidity. After the losses, investors who were buying up ABCP like hot cakes suddenly decided that they did not want any of it anymore.
As concerns the Caisse de dépôt, their ABCP was issued by third parties, and not banks. These ABCP were structured in a particular way. In this specific Canadian case, the credit margins accompanying this ABCP were very imperfect. In fact, several ratings agencies simply refused to rate those securities. In a certain way, investors understood that they were only using one highly subjective rating. It is always preferable to have two credit ratings.