Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I don't want to be the cloud that rains on everything, but if I had not lived through this last year and I walked into this meeting, I would not think we had gone through a recession. I would think that credit was available to pretty well everyone who asked for it. I only wish some of you had had the opportunity to sit in my riding office and receive the number of calls I received. I swear that every one of those 5% of bank customers felt access to credit was their biggest challenge. You would think it was that 5% that called my office.
Mr. Campbell, I can't resist asking you this. You say that more than 90% of the respondents who approached their banks felt the banks were willing to help them through this period, with more than 50% noting their banks were very willing to help. I have to wonder how many people you asked, because you quote 90% of respondents.
But more importantly, I'd like you to reconcile that statement with the statement on page 3 from the BDC report that states:
The proportion of loans going to new clients is higher than usual. We attribute this to the difficulty they are having in obtaining credit elsewhere.
Something in your report is just not consistent with my experience. Many of my constituents were begging for credit, and many were told to not even apply because they weren't going to get it. In fact, some of them were asked to increase the interest rate by 1%, in the middle of a recession. I have to have an answer to that.