People are always very surprised to find out what the legal interest rate is in Canada. It can go up to 60%. As you can imagine, it's not people with incomes like ours that are subjected to those rates; it's always the poorest among us. On Chambly Street, where our association offices are located, I can tell you that that type of lender can be found at every two or three doors. This is common currency in all large cities. In France and Belgium, they passed legislation about that. An effort must be made to fight against spiralling debt.
We've observed that workers seek out this type of credit. People who live on unemployment insurance or social assistance have incomes that are said to be "non-seizable". The problem for workers is that their incomes are seizable. They end up in the credit spiral, and that's very harmful. They lose their assets, everything they have been able to accumulate over a lifetime. Physical and mental health problems may develop at that stage. This year, we've seen reports in the newspapers of such situations, suicides by couples, the death of children. We're not immune to that.