In effect, from a contextual perspective, Canadian debt to income is at an all-time high. Certain cohorts of Canadians are more vulnerable within those aggregate figures. By this I mean they have debt obligations that are above 40% of their post-tax income. That historically has been a level where you see step change in terms of their ability to service debts because of shocks. I'll try to avoid causing a shock, so I won't speculate on what exactly a shock could be, but it's something that materially lowers global economic growth. This could be events in emerging markets or events in one of the major economies. Materially lowered global economic growth has a flow-through impact on Canadian exports and has a knock-on impact on Canadian investment and hiring because businesses are uncertain. They also see less prospect for profit, so it has a knock-on effect that hits Canadian jobs.
Not surprisingly, one of the key indicators of heightened delinquencies on mortgages is employment. If you get a shock to unemployment, because we're an open economy and because of a reduction in global demand, you would have that knock-on impact. The challenge is if the impact is big enough, you can get a feedback to the housing market as well. More properties are on the market, fewer people are buying the properties. That hits the prices, that hits confidence on the margin, and there's less spending. These are recession-type dynamics, which are caused by a hypothetical larger shock. This is not our expectation in any respect, but we have to be conscious. All the parties involved, all the federal agencies involved, including the bank, have been quite conscious of this potential vulnerability over the course of the last few years, which is why we individually and collectively have taken steps to help manage the situation.