Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have a couple of follow-up comments. When we look at the Canadian housing market, one of the really good things is that about 40% of homeowners don't have a mortgage. The last time I looked, the numbers in my riding were 37%.
The other thing is that our interest expenses are tax deductible as they are south of the border, which encourages Canadians to pay down their mortgage as quickly as possible.
Another great thing in Canada is that we have about 100,000 new folks who want to live, work, study, raise a family in the greater Toronto area. The downside is that we have a housing market imbalance where the supply of new housing takes a very long time to come to market, whether it's due to municipal rules or to land zoning issues that have come down from the province onto municipalities.
Demographics support housing growth because so many new folks are coming in, whether they're immigrants or just people moving from different areas of Canada. We've now put in some measures.
If you want to go back to 2008 or if you just want to comment for now, with the new measures that have been introduced, what anecdotally are you seeing for consumers? What are you seeing on choice, competition, and from my perspective, liquidity in the Canadian mortgage market? I think those are things that we need to consider. The BOC forecasts that housing will have a negative impact on growth of GDP of 0.3% for next year. There may be tail risk on that, if I can use the word on that side.
I'm curious to see your early anecdotal evidence or data that you've seen from the housing market changes. If you want to go back to the 15 changes or just go back to those from October, what have the individual organizations seen on that front?
Thank you.