Thanks, Mr. Chair.
My questions will be for Mortgage Professionals Canada. Mr. Taylor and Mr. Wolfe, you can decide between you who would like to answer.
I had to step out for another meeting briefly, so I apologize in advance if I repeat some questions you've already had. No doubt my colleague Mr. Kmiec would have been asking questions. I'm quite certain of that. I hope I'm not being repetitive, because he never has done that before—right, Mr. Chair?
I do want to ask about the government's shared equity mortgage plan. We're awaiting a lot of detail, as I'm sure you are, to see what that program looks like. I want to see if my initial thought on it is one that you share, and if so, why.
In terms of background, I was in the real estate industry before politics and I dealt with a lot of first-time homebuyers. From what I hear in the time since, it doesn't seem to have changed much in that the biggest challenge a lot of first-time buyers face is not so much the mortgage payments themselves but saving for that down payment. Of course, when rents continue to go up and things such as that, it's that much harder to imagine doing that.
I don't see that the plan does anything to actually address the bigger issue for those first-time buyers, which is that down payment. Would you share that thought, and if so, why?