I think there are various ways to explain and account for this.
Firstly, I think that, to answer a question your colleague asked, households have had very easy access to credit for several years. We see that it is even easier for households to borrow than it is for businesses, and this has, in a way, increased household debt.
Furthermore, we must not forget that we went through a period following the financial crisis in the late 2000s and early 2010s during which we benefited from very low interest rates for a very long time. This actually allowed households to increase their debt levels without necessarily seeing the impact on their monthly payments. So, for example, it allowed people to buy a bigger house, since interest rates were low, and this meant lower mortgage payments.
So, all of this together has contributed to the situation. From a much more macroeconomic and structural perspective, we could almost say that, in a way, it is linked to productivity. In a way, in Canada, we have adopted the wrong growth model over the last 30 years. We have placed a great deal of emphasis on economic demand, particularly from households, at the expense of supply and the ways in which we increase productivity and business investment.
We must not forget that, in order to consume, households must have an income, and that income depends on their wages. These wages depend on productivity gains. That is where we stand after more than 30 years. In a way, the elastic has been stretched to its limit, and we are now facing some fairly significant problems.