Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I absolutely do agree with that. In fact, in my submission I pointed to it in my brief remarks to unconventional monetary policies as drivers of asset price inflation. Quite simply, when you flood the financial system with all of that cash and you drive interest rates down almost to zero, and signal that they are going to stay at zero or low for a long time to come, it really dries up credible investment opportunities in the real economy, because basically money is free to borrow. What that does is drive all of that cash into different kinds of asset markets. Stock markets, even during the pandemic, were reaching record highs. Property prices are at record highs and in bubble territory.
When I hear the argument that low interest rates are good for homeowners, or good for those who want to buy a home, I find that quite strange, because, yes, it's true that for a given value of your home a lower rate is good for you, but lower rates have actually inflated property prices. So, yes, at the margin you benefit from a lower rate, but if your house has tripled in value, a new homeowner is just locked out of that market.
Indeed, I would point to those as principal drivers of.... We have distorted the real economy of Canada and many other countries. I think that unconventional policies were well intentioned. They made sense for the first couple of years, but they are now well past their sell-by date. They are a cure worse than the disease at this point, Mr. Chair.