It's a hard question to answer in some ways, because there are so many confounding factors involved in it. I would say there are certainly reasons that the federal government or governments in general may take on debt, like in response to the great financial crisis or to COVID-19. As for whether or not they took on too much debt, they probably did when you see deficits balloon the way they have. Governments were responding to a crisis, so in some ways it's understandable.
I would say that this debt increase, corresponding with a period of very low interest rates, also allowed households to take on more debt, because they didn't have to pay as much monthly to service it. When you have a low interest rate environment, it's natural to increase debt.
From a business lending perspective, I think the response to the great financial crisis and the Basel III capital requirements have actually made the banks draw back a bit from business lending, especially on the smaller end. That has probably contributed to our decreased productivity. On that end, I think it's important to have pathways for more business lending and maybe have OSFI decrease prudential business lending requirements.
That said, on the consumer side, as on the homeowner side, the low interest rate environment plus the heavy government spending did allow consumers to take on quite a bit of debt. Nonetheless, as we can see, they seem to be handling it okay—at least on average—when you look at the debt service ratio.