We all know about the aggregate supply versus aggregate demand side of the economy and what's happening there.
I would argue that one of the very positive outcomes of the pandemic is that we have limited scarring of the economy. Whether it's measured by our labour market or by GDP, the Canadian economy is obviously now larger than where it was pre-pandemic and so forth.
Obviously, there are indirect consequences for credit markets when you have to lower rates— and I'm not speaking for the Bank of Canada, nor would I do so. Obviously, we need to look at measures for helping Canadians to ensure that they can afford to purchase a home, especially first-time buyers. We do know that 70% of Canadians own their homes and have paid off their mortgages. The home ownership rate in Canada has hovered around that 70% rate, and 95% of our housing market is actually private housing market with no government interaction at all with participants so we do have a healthy housing market, but we do have issues that we're addressing.
I look forward to seeing some of the measures that we put in our platform on blind bidding, the housing accelerator fund, and many measures to that extent.
I have read your “Intelligence Memos” from January and February. They're very thoughtful, and I do agree that we need to have well-anchored inflation expectations both for the business side....
In terms of your comment on productivity, Mr. Robson, it has been a long-standing issue under successive governments that we need to address our productivity challenge or gap versus the United States. I put out some of my own thoughts on how we should do that. It's great to see the digital adaptation program our government put out and the women entrepreneurship loan fund.
We have more things to do and I look forward to doing those things over the coming years.
If you have any more thoughts on the productivity question, I'd love to hear them.