As far as the Canadian Mortgage Brokers Association is concerned, we were not consulted on any changes. As I mentioned in my preamble, we'd like to be consulted.
As far as regional policy goes.... I'm going to date myself a bit here. I started as a mortgage broker in 1988 and there was actually a bisected policy. In those days, there was a $125,000 rule and a $175,000 rule. If you were in an outlying area, it actually was the opposite effect. You could put a minimum down payment to a maximum of $125,000, and in a larger city centre you could go up to $175,000. It has worked in the past.
When some of these changes came about, our association sent a letter to the Minister of Finance's office with some recommendations. It's in our submission. One of the basic ideas there was, how much is enough? How much is a lot of debt? We always talk about “a lot of debt”. We've recommended that maybe we should look at a number so that below, say, $500,000, we could actually qualify mortgages on a discounted rate, because now you have to go to the benchmark rate.
It has affected regions. We are taking issues that are maybe of concern in our primary centres like Toronto and Vancouver and putting these policies across the country. It's not really that fair. This idea of regional policies can work and has worked in the past.