Finance committee  I will say, in response to that question, that at CMHC we like to focus on supply, but we understand that there are demand factors that create house price escalation in the short term. We are concerned about things like money laundering. One of the concerns is that we don't have a lot of good data that really helps us assess the extent of money laundering in Canada.

Finance committee  In response to that question, I would say that we have quite a diverse client list of developers. We serve developers across the spectrum, be they large or small. We have very good clients who we do a lot of business with in the Atlantic region but we also have developers in Toronto as well.

Finance committee  With respect to that question, I would like to take that back. I'm not aware of this specific issue with respect to quantity surveyors. I will check with my team in the Atlantic provinces and provide a response to Mr. Stewart.

Finance committee  I'm not aware of the specific issue, but I will consult with my operations team and get back to Mr. Stewart.

Finance committee  I can't comment on what the program will look like, because it's under development, but I would like to highlight that we are conducting a public consultation on possible design choices that we could make. We've sort of launched it through our social media. We're asking Canadians and other stakeholders to provide feedback on decisions that we could make on its design.

Finance committee  Fair enough. I'll use that one example. When we were first tasked with the responsibility of rolling out the national housing strategy, we had a number of loan programs, and as we were setting up our processes, the actual processing time was almost nine months from receipt of the application to the release of funds.

Finance committee  With respect to our mortgage insurance business, which can also be applied to developers, we have done a better job of triaging applications by risk. We have different processes for underwriting smaller credits versus larger ones, so we have tried to create some triaging in our underwriting processes to make the process go faster.

Finance committee  I thank you very much for the question, but unfortunately I can't comment on the exact day of the rollout. However, I can provide a bit of explanation as to the nature of the program. The question is in reference to the Canada greener homes program. It comprises three parts. The first part is delivered through NRCan, and it consists of a $5,000 grant, as well as costs for the energy inspection required to do changes and renovations to a home.

Finance committee  I can talk to you about CMHC's delinquencies. Our delinquencies have been below 0.3%. So they have been very, very low, and despite the fact that there has been an economic recession, we feel that in terms of delinquencies the mortgage market has been very robust. That being said, at CMHC we take risk management very seriously and we do invest in significant stress-testing capabilities to make sure we have sufficient capital in place for any losses that we would incur.

Finance committee  It was a change in what is called the “stress test”. It provides a little bit of an extra buffer for first-time homebuyers qualifying for mortgages, or a little bit of cushion in the system in the event of sudden changes in interest rates. From a prudential perspective, we feel that that kind of change is good for the system.

Finance committee  My apologies—I was just coming to that question. In terms of losses, based on our stress testing and our experience, we find that losses in our mortgage book are caused by unemployment, not changes in interest rate. Therefore, I think the stress test may have indirectly contributed to the robustness of our mortgage book by having more stringent criteria, but I don't think there's a direct relationship between those two changes.

Finance committee  To repeat my previous answer, Generation Squeeze's proposal was to study generational wealth inequality. It was not to study the capital gains tax issue specifically. Perhaps I was not clear on that, but I'd just like to state that their study was quite broad, and they chose, as part of the solution, to focus on tax for an aspect of their response.

Finance committee  With respect to our solutions labs, there is a competitive process. We provide a lot of transparency about the application process and the ways in which proponents can submit their ideas. We have an internal committee that reviews all the applications, ranks them and grants the money to successful applicants.

Finance committee  Again, that's quite a complex question to answer, because there are so many actions being taken across various levels of government. I think just this week there was actually a housing summit in Ontario that brought together many municipal leaders to address housing challenges. There are many programs available at the municipal and provincial levels across the country to address this issue.

Finance committee  Thank you very much for that question. Again, municipal zoning requirements are not within federal jurisdiction. I think what CMHC and the federal government can do is to provide information and insight about how some of these zoning rules impair the fast supply response that we need to that demand.