In two minutes....
It's interesting that about half of the decline in Canada's growth and potential output is due to slower growth in labour supply. There's a real focus on figuring out how to increase that. Of course, the arithmetics of it are that immigration can do that.
I think there are other things, as well, that we've noticed, and that's just trying to look at the prime-age worker participation rates. Getting those segments of the population, discouraged men and women—women who perhaps haven't yet decided to join the labour force—could increase the labour input to potential output.
There's also the youth. When you look at the participation rates for young people since the crisis, they've declined. The governor's standing line is that they're probably not retiring. I think that's true. Some of them are in school, but some of them aren't. They're looking for work and could be productive.
When I talk to firms, they talk about the need to have the right labour in the right place at the right time. With regard to labour mobility, especially when you have the kind of shock we've had, where some areas are doing less well but there are jobs in another part of the country, that labour mobility is so important. Having the right education to fill the needs that are emerging is important as well.
That's not independent of productivity. The governor already mentioned a few things that firms tell us with respect to productivity. Clearly, regulation in electricity prices and other things affect their decisions about where they're going to locate.
You're right to say that on the measures of the health of the household balance sheet and their financial position, it's always wise to look at a number of indicators. Looking at that aggregate debt-to-income ratio is one way to look at it. We delve in, looking at net worth. That is another thing.
I think the best way to look at the health of the household sector is to look at the distribution of those things. You can have a lot of those average numbers hiding a lot that's underneath.
If you look back at our financial system review in June, you'll see that we did a strong analysis of debt-to-income ratios and loan-to-income ratios, and that a very high and growing percentage of the population is taking on loans that are over 450% of their income. That means that their debt service ratios are very high.
It may be that they have an asset. Most Canadians' assets are their houses. The issue, though, is that if they get into trouble from an employment point of view or an income stream point of view, they don't necessarily have those liquid assets that allow them to keep meeting their debt obligations.
It's great to see that net worth is high, but that depends on the value of the asset and the stability of the value of that asset, but also the liquidity of that asset. It's good to look at a number of indicators and look at the distribution across those indicators.