Madam Speaker, when we had the Governor of the Bank of Canada at the finance committee, my province at the time had put forward a program similar to the shared equity program the government is offering. I asked the Governor of the Bank of Canada what he thought of it. At the time, the Bank of Canada was not in favour of it, simply because it can cause home prices to rise. We would have home prices rising at the same time we have people going into the market and taking on more debt, in addition to having a government that is borrowing money to pay for the program CMHC would be offering.
Debt is an important part of an overall plan, but the government does not have a plan for its own debt. It does not have a plan to help Canadians get into homes without encouraging them to take on more and more debt. At some point, we have to find reasonable limitations and work with people. We should start in our own backyard with the Government of Canada starting to tame its own debt.