It is fairly incredible that 5.5 million applications could have been processed in two weeks. It does speak, I think, to the need that Canadians have for this type of support. I don't think the labour force survey fully captured that when it came out today. I think we'll see how high the unemployment rate is when the April data comes out in May.
In terms of reducing pressure on mortgage holders, and what we could do for this or about this, we do have a precursor to this, more in the U.S. than in Canada. When the financial crisis hit the U.S., it was primarily due to residential mortgages. We can learn from the U.S. about what worked and what didn't, in terms of attempting to keep people in their homes as opposed to having them lose their homes and having their credit ratings wrecked for seven years. Largely, what happened was the latter, not the former. People were kicked out of their homes, they went bankrupt and their credit ratings were wrecked with long-term ramifications.
What could have happened, and had happened elsewhere, was that government played a role in helping homeowners renegotiate mortgages as needed. This isn't a deferral, but it is a changing of the terms of the contract with the banks in terms of their mortgages, spacing out the payments over a longer period, having to be slightly lower for some period and then increasing later on. Potentially, folks get jobs back and the labour markets improve.
I think at this point, as much as I or anyone else loves to hate the banks, this is something that really needs to be done in coordination with the federal government. I would say the provincial governments, but it's the federal government that should be in a position to start making plans towards renegotiating mortgages if people stop making payments on them.