Evidence of meeting #15 for Public Accounts in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was billion.
A video is available from Parliament.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance
The government has acted five times in the housing market since 2012 to effectively condense amortization periods, to increase down payment requirements and so on—credit score requirements—to mitigate any potential housing bubble or adverse housing shock.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
I agree with all of those decisions, but if we're asking the lender to act strictly as a rational creature and he has a potential borrower of a mortgage sitting in front of him, that lender knows that in the event of default, it's someone else's problem. Right?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance
I completely understand, Mr. Chair, and that goes back to the way the member opened his comments, which is that deductibility and some distribution of that risk is exactly what we're looking at. As the housing market grows and household formation continues to slope on an upward trajectory, we need to take a look at our housing market and the distribution of those insurance risks.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Are you considering, then, deductibles paid by the bank in the case of mortgage default loss?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance
I can't speak to what's under consideration within the department, but the points the member is raising are good ones that we need to be mindful of.
Conservative
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
I have two quick points.
There's clearly some interest around this table in the CMHC, and I believe it's within this committee's mandate, if interested, to call CMHC to have a discussion. I just want to offer that. We've done the best we can here today, but I sense there's an appetite for more.
I have noted three follow-ups that I want to confer with you on, Mr. Chair: CMHC, debt management strategy, and some information on the federal summer student jobs program. Those are our three takeaways, and I think that's all we have left on our plate.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Yes, those are the three takeaways.
I would also suggest to our witnesses that if you leave this place and think you could have added more information to a different question, or you would like to provide information in response to a question, even though the information is not related to one of those three, please do. You can expand on an answer . You can do any of those things
Thank you very much for coming.
One never knows the direction the committee may take as it hears from our guests. I knew that the Department of National Defence was one we did have an interest in, and the interest in CMHC kind of came on as we heard other testimony from you.
I would just add for committee members that when you go through the public accounts as a new committee, I find these documents are handy to keep close throughout the year. There is an amazing amount of information on every department of government within these three big volumes on the public accounts of Canada by our national government. Keep them close. They'll help you with other committee work, if you're doing that. They're a really great resource.
Thank you to our Auditor General and to the officials from Treasury Board and the Department of Finance. We appreciate your attendance here today.
We're going to suspend momentarily and come back quickly so we can deal with committee business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]