Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to quickly address the point about consulting and publicly traded companies and how that might impact....and that kind of thing. Most of us, at least those of us who were there on the call in Kelowna just before doing pre-budget consultations, heard directly—because Mr. McColeman asked specifically if they consulted—Finance officials confirm that they did not do a formal consultation. They said they would not call it a consultation, but they did discuss it with some banks.
Mr. Chair, for anyone to say that this is all about keeping that protection so no one gets an advantage from it, that's ridiculous. We heard that, and I would just refresh that in some people's minds.
Consulting can be a very good thing. Yes, we did take some measures after 2008, which, as many people pointed out to me, was the ultimate stress test. We heard from Ms. McDowell today. She says there's an 81% increase in unemployment in Alberta, and I think going from 0.26 of one per cent for default to 0.41 of one per cent shows there's huge resilience within the system.
For people to be saying this is about debt.... The prudence of the people in the business are what is giving us such a good system. Yes, it could be argued that some adjustments have not been well received by the industry. They have said themselves that they have never seen this.
I'm going to get right into my questions now.
First of all, we talked about refinancing and how many mortgage loan companies may not be in that market anymore because of the increased costs of a refinance. I've talked to a credit union. They've seen an uptick in second mortgages. Now, to me that's concerning. A second mortgage puts a person in a much more precarious state to achieve the same goal.
Mr. Mauris, since your mortgage brokers do about 39% of the business, have you seen anything?