Mr. Sorbara made the mistake of confusing the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation with a mortgage lender. It's not a mortgage lender, it's a mortgage insurer, so the Canadian people don't owe the money for their houses to the Government of Canada, as he had stated. They owe it to lenders for whom, sometimes, the insurer is CMHC.
There is a corresponding liability with that insurance in that if there is a mortgage default loss, that loss goes to CMHC. There are certainly billions of dollars in the coffers of CMHC to protect against those losses, but that is distinct from believing, as Mr. Sorbara apparently does, that Canadians will be paying CMHC mortgage payments, with the exception of about $75 billion of mortgages that the CMHC purchased during the financial crisis in late 2008. That is not something CMHC does.
That being said, I am glad he highlighted CMHC because across the spectrum, financial experts agree that we have overpriced housing in very large markets across this country, particularly Toronto and Vancouver. That is a major risk, particularly as interest rates rise.
The ability of Canada to withstand a significant rise in interest rates, and the consequential reduction in housing prices in those markets is really at question. That kind of risk should lead us now, while times are good in the world economy, to store away our financial resources rather than building up debt that future generations will have to withstand.
I wonder if the assembled witnesses are interested in commenting on risks that are associated with Canada's high level of personal debt and the inordinately high housing prices in major Canadian markets.