We've discussed this at length in the financial system review. What we see is a combination of very elevated prices that may not make much sense if you look at the fundamentals combined with a large amount of debt. And it's not just aggregate debt. If you look at the different neighbourhoods where prices are high, you see that the people living there and have the mortgages are also the most indebted. They may have debt-to-income ratios over 450%.
That combination creates a vulnerability. We call it a vulnerability because what it needs is a trigger to make that vulnerability turn into a risk that materializes. Of course, this would be a big drag on the macro- economy, depending on how big and widespread the event was. In the worst case, it would be an issue for financial stability. If you read our FSR, however, you know that that would take a really big event for it to get to that point.
Yes, we think about it, but the factors that might lead to these big price increases often are not treated as well as they could be by an increase in the interest rate. An increase in the interest rate would affect the whole country, including whole provinces where this isn't an issue at all. It's quite a widely spread instrument when we use it, and it's very effective. At the same time, you could look to other policies that are actually much more effective and more targeted. We saw some of them in action last year in Vancouver.
Another point we've made is that if you think you're investing and you're going to get a 20% or 30% return, it's not clear to us that raising the interest rate—a difference in an interest rate of 50 basis points or 200 basis points—is really going to change your mind on a rate of return that's really that lucrative. You combine this with the fact that, if you look at our credit numbers, it's actually not a credit-driven price cycle at this point.
I would say that the monetary policy tool would be the wrong one at this point.