Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank all of our witnesses for being here today. When we had OSFI and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation here, they never once used the word “fraud”, so I hope the government members aren't trying to spin any of this to say these rules are being put in place to prevent fraud.
However, I'll go right to you, Mr. Lancastle. I appreciate your being here. On page 3 of your briefing note, you say:
Despite federal policies and procedures to cool the real estate market in recent years, there are still many Canadians who are determined to enter the housing market. If they are turned away by federally [...]regulated institutions due to newly implemented policies and OSFI regulations, the unintended consequences may be that borrowers are turning towards less regulated (including second tier) lenders to secure funding at a higher interest rate.
Now, in the earlier session, I asked about this specifically, because I've heard from a credit union that it's seeing a large uptick in second mortgage activity. Is that the kind of behaviour you're talking about, sir?