Thank you very much, Mr. Siddall, for your service to the country. I know you have worked extremely hard and, politics aside, you have made great sacrifices doing your job. I hope you have health and happiness in the next phase of your life.
On the issue of Canada's housing market, you said you were wrong to predict that housing prices would drop between 8% and 16%. I'm not sure you were wrong; I think you might have been early. I think there is another chapter to unfold in this story.
As your data has shown, for a house to be affordable, the monthly payments on it should not consume more than 30% of pre-tax income. Right now, the average house costs the average family 50% of pre-tax income. That means that, for the average family, the average house is two-thirds more expensive than the family can afford.
Vancouver is the second most expensive housing market in the world, behind Hong Kong. Toronto is number six, when you compare average income to average house price. Housing prices rose record levels last year, in a time when immigration was down and the GDP fell by $120 billion. None of this makes any sense whatsoever.
That said, there are causes driven by the federal government that explain some of the story. One, of course, is that the Bank of Canada is printing money and pumping it into the financial system, and it's being lent out and driving up demand, but CMHC has a role here as well. You, as a mortgage insurer, are taking the risk off the lender and putting it on the taxpayer, which creates a distortion that separates risk from return. Anybody who can earn a return without a risk is going to engage heavily in the activity that produces that return.
What is the total dollar value of all the mortgage debt in Canada that CMHC insures, not just through a portfolio and transaction insurance, but through other securitization in Canada mortgage bond products?