Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to welcome our guests here today. We're kind of overwhelmed when we see the number of presentations and the breadth of them.
Mr. Johnson, this is not a question for you but a comment. I was on the United Way board for about 20 years. I watched in the eighties when government withdrew from the communities, and the agencies had to backfill for the losses. Levering $65 billion into $200 billion sounds like a good proposition to me.
Mr. Chair, we've set aside 12 meetings to look at something we agree on. It sounds interesting.
Mr. Penney, we had witnesses before us in the last sitting of this committee who said that now was not the time for austerity measures by the government, and it shouldn't be withdrawing from the economy. We have a situation where Canadians are not investing. We have heard several comments about this $500 billion that the corporations are holding. I suspect they're holding that because they're afraid that the banks will lock up once again and not have cash available.
Do you have any comments at all about how the government might work with the business community to lever some of that money into our economy?