Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Following the release of the Canadian economic accounts for the third quarter, we saw a significant buildup of savings, added onto savings that we started to see emerge in the late summer and early fall, which in nominal terms is roughly $150 billion of savings sitting in deposit accounts, liquid accounts, at Canadian financial institutions.
Indeed, a lot of economists are pointing to that and using the term “pre-loaded stimulus”, because when the economy gets back to normal and virus risks are contained—whenever that is, because we don't have a crystal ball—consumers and businesses would be more willing to re-engage in the economy with those lower risks and would start to draw down on those savings. Therefore, they could provide a significant boost to the economy if some of those savings brought consumer spending back to its pre-pandemic levels, or even beyond if people have pent-up demand that they're going to release because they're sitting on all these cash accounts.
We'll see, but that's the general theory.