Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to get back to a very interesting question asked by my colleague Van Kesteren. I was extremely surprised by Mr. Poschmann's answer.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the U.S., the political pressures for deregulation came directly from the financial market. The pressures were numerous and strong, and they resulted in the deregulation we saw in the United States. The deregulation led two private companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to agree to loans through what is called commercial papers.
Unless I'm mistaken, those two companies, although extremely transparent while they were privately owned, became government enterprises. The private sector actually took the profits, but it left American taxpayers with a tab of almost $500 billion. That's not really the type of situation I would like to see develop in Canada. I hope you agree with that.
Mr. Poschmann?