Thanks to our witnesses for being here today. We hope your families are safe and healthy.
Thank you, Mr. Morneau, for coming back yet again to the finance committee. Through this crisis, you've been very available not only for meetings with the finance critics, but also with the finance committee. The meetings are not always easy, but we appreciate your availability, and certainly your ear.
My first question is very simple. We've been told by OSFI that, in terms of liquidity support, Canadian banks have received access to about $750 billion in liquidity support. That's three-quarters of a trillion dollars. As you know, they have made $5 billion in profits thus far during the pandemic, but we are hearing from small businesses that can't access credit. We are hearing from people who are seeing their lines of credit and their credit card numbers going up. There are penalties and fees being imposed by the banks, and folks are paying interest charges that are, frankly, unreasonable in a pandemic.
My question is very simple. With all this largesse, this $750 billion in liquidity support, why have you not imposed any requirements on the banks to actually provide support to people who are trying to survive this pandemic?