Thank you to all the witnesses for being here this morning.
My first question is for Mr. Poschmann and is on the mortgage insurance issue.
When the private mortgage insurers came into Canada, the large insurers, like the now defunct AIG and Genworth, the result was that borrowers signed up for about $50 billion in 40-year mortgages, which were some of the most expensive and least flexible mortgages that there could be. Some $10 billion of those mortgages required no money down. Many Canadians got into debt over their heads.
We've heard from Ms. Kinsley that in fact Canada weathered the downturn better than most other countries, and that Canada is relatively stable. Why would Canada now want to increase its mortgage risk? When we just increased the liability of Canadian taxpayers to private mortgage insurers in 2006 to $200 billion, why would we increase that liability for Canadian taxpayers up to $300 billion today?