Finance committee  Very quickly, I would only add that there are several different methods to approaching housing measurement in CPIs, and there is no consensus on that. It's the one area that is quite complex. The U.K. and the U.S. both use what's called the “rental equivalence” method; hence, they are not also including housing prices directly in their CPI measure.

Finance committee  There is a mortgage interest cost formula that amortizes mortgages over 20 to 30 years.

Finance committee  I'm sorry. I don't have that number.

Finance committee  The principal payment is not included.

Finance committee  That is 3.4%. The principal itself, because the house is an asset and not paid for as a consumption good, is not included.

Finance committee  Thank you very much. The CPI measures the increase in spending by home owners and renters. I can confirm that the spending of home owners increased by 5.3%. For rented accommodation, it's an increase of 1.8%, so we have certainly seen that owned accommodation, owned housing, has increased at a faster pace, but there are certain dynamics at the regional and local levels that can go beyond those headline numbers.

Finance committee  Renters are harder hit in the western provinces than in other provinces, but the effects are the same for home owners across the country.

Finance committee  If I may, in addition to the house replacement cost, which is the key piece where new housing prices come in—only new, not resale—the owned accommodation also includes many other components of running a household. That is all the property taxes, the insurance, the total weight of owned—

Finance committee  The total weight of owned accommodation is actually 19.7% as of the last basket update, and homeowners' replacement is only a part of that.

Finance committee  It's only if there would be time to take this—

Finance committee  That's fine.

Finance committee  Thank you very much. I will answer in English because I will be using some rather technical vocabulary. What we know, as the chief statistician described, is that many components experienced base effect. When you compare 2021 to the first year of the pandemic, 2020, we look at the impact of base effect, but it is really specific to various components and those components vary from month to month.