Looking at the debt levels of households, we have seen some levelling off in terms of increasing household debt, although that has been picking up again in the last year.
With regard to debt sustainability, clearly the sector that is most over-leveraged in the Canadian economy is household. This isn't news to this committee, and it's not news to the folks at the Bank of Canada or to economists in general, who have been highlighting the issue of high household debt.
In the short term, it may well be sustainable, given historically low interest rates and, importantly, historically low mortgage rates, that the vast majority of the debt in fact is mortgage debt and is not debt from buying household items like computers, TVs, and so on. In the short term, it may well be sustainable, given that the mortgage payments are quite low. The real problem it presents is that it has leveraged up the household sector, and changes in the mortgage rate going forward will have a much bigger impact on the household sector than it would have if the household sector had seen lower rates of indebtedness.
So that's the real concern. When and if economic growth begins again and we do see mortgage rates start to climb up again from historic lows, the real danger is that an over-leveraged household sector cuts back on its spending—it has been the primary driver of economic growth—and we see a real drag on growth once we start to see some pickup.