Finance committee  I'll respond in English.

Finance committee  First of all, the Department of Finance is leading the consultations on lender risk sharing. Those are going on right now, and it will be for the government to decide where that goes. Our analysis of potential risk sharing, as has been presented in the consultation papers, is that there could be a modest increase in mortgage rates in the neighbourhood of 10 to 50 basis points, so 0.1% to 0.5%.

Finance committee  Yes, absolutely. That's correct.

Finance committee  Yes, particularly among first-time homebuyers.... It's a little early yet to see. There's some seasonality in our results, but I don't want us to avoid the question. I'll refer the question to Steve Mennill, my colleague, who runs our insurance business. I will say that we had expected some slowdown, and in terms of what I had seen going into it, it's not even quite as bad as we'd thought.

Finance committee  Or, if I may say, save for another year or two and buy those same homes. It would be a deferring of that economic activity, as opposed to an elimination of it.

Finance committee  I think we need a year to have a complete picture of the situation. Because of the seasons we would want to go through one full year.

Finance committee  You asked me for evidence.

Finance committee  There were a number of business models that were substantially based, for example, on refinancing. I gather some testimony has referred to refinancing as something that has been lost. I want to distinguish between renewal and refinancing. If an individual comes to the end of their mortgage term and seeks to renew, they can still do that.

Finance committee  The evidence is in economic crises throughout history. Of the 46 financial crises for which we have data, the overwhelming majority of those, 70%, were preceded by housing boom-and-bust cycles. There's a book called House of Debt, by Atif Mian and Amir Sufi, and they say it is as definitive a relationship as exists in macroeconomics.

Finance committee  We don't believe we've been tested in our system in Canada. I wouldn't suggest that the financial crisis as it applied in Canada was a true stress test. We publish stress tests that are far more aggressive than that, and, with respect to oil price declines, far uglier than we've experienced recently in Alberta.

Finance committee  I would just say it's my job to not be complacent about that.

Finance committee  It was the evidence of 46 prior economic crises. That's real data, as opposed to an economic model. I'm happy to share that data with you.

Finance committee  I won't talk about education other than to say we know that better housing is positively correlated with better education and health outcomes for children and people. There is a correlation, and we take that responsibility on. In fact, a collection of expertise in a regional housing authority or a community housing authority among neighbouring first nations is a way to deal with that.

Finance committee  A whole-of-government approach where we help to sponsor that shared expertise in communities wouldn't have to be a zero-sum game, would it? You could have people from one community performing one function, and people from another community performing a different function for the group.

Finance committee  Housing First is the responsibility of our colleagues at Employment and Social Development Canada, ESDC, also under the purview of Minister Duclos. We coordinate with them on the homelessness partnering strategy and Housing First, but homelessness per se is ESDC's responsibility.