Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In terms of.... Mr. Poilievre is absolutely correct. It is a very unusual financial crisis, the pandemic, in terms of you would expect house prices to decline during an economic decline, and they have not. The increase is due to the very particular nature of the pandemic. You need to put into context that there has been a supply shortage, and supply in housing takes a long time to respond to demand.
During the pandemic, there was very rapid change in the demand by Canadians for houses. You have probably all observed or have read in the newspaper that Canadians who were spending a lot of time at home were looking to change some of their housing choices. We feel that this played a role in increasing demand during a period where supply was constrained and—