Sure. It's my pleasure to be here.
Mr. Chair, that was a two-part question. The first was on the status of the housing market, and the second was on the solvency of our mortgage loan insurance business.
With respect to the housing market, we endorse comments that in general Canadian housing markets are modestly overvalued. We're not dispirited by that. Markets go up and markets go down. Sometimes they're a little overvalued and sometimes they're a little undervalued. Our assessment in general is that markets are a touch overvalued.
Last year we published for the first time, and republished last week, as we will do quarterly, something called our house price analysis and assessment framework. It uses, based on economic background—I won't get into the technicalities of it because it will bore me and you even more, I'm sure—different measures of the market, the performance of the market and status of individual housing markets in 12 different cities in the country. In general, after that work, which was quite extensive, we pronounced a robust housing market that we think will evolve naturally.
As I said, markets are a little overvalued and they're a little undervalued. There were a couple we picked up as being of higher risk. Those were Regina, Winnipeg, Montreal.... Regina and Winnipeg we thought were at high risk primarily because of overbuilding and oversupply in those markets, and Montreal and Quebec City at modest risk in part because of their price levels and some overbuilding as well, in particular in the condo sector, which is also a challenge in Toronto. In general, we believe the markets will evolve naturally, as markets do from time to time, and that's what we project for the future year.
We project a moderation in house prices. We do expect a potential decline in house prices in Alberta as a result of the oil price adjustment and in particular the unemployment that would result from that.
I'll just add briefly that with respect to the solvency of our business on the mortgage loan insurance side, CMHC returned $2.6 billion of profit to the government in the past year. It's a very profitable business. That's all of our business, but the majority of that is our mortgage loan insurance business. We retained $16.5 billion worth of capital in that business, which is almost double the regulatory minimum we think is needed from a solvency point of view.