Finance committee  There are two concepts here. One is how you measure the change in that basket as exemplified by that typical expenditure. It just says that in terms of shelter costs, we're talking about an average household spending about 30%. That serves as the weight in the basket, and then you see that change over time.

Finance committee  I won't judge whether it's a problem or not, but certainly our rate was 4.7% year over year in the last release that we put out. When you compare that to, let's say, the OECD average, which is at 5.8% or 5.9%, you can see that there are many countries that are higher. The U.S., of course, has a rate quite a bit higher than ours, and then there are other countries—Switzerland, for example—that have a much lower rate than ours.

Finance committee  Yes, I think our figures show that. The only thing I would add is a shift in the nature of that demand now as well, as we've discussed before as it pertains to eating at home and cooking at home as opposed to in a restaurant. Also, even in a restaurant, as you know, many restaurant owners had to invest in patios and so on with lumber prices that were quite high, so even in going out to eat you're seeing higher costs.

Finance committee  Thank you for that question. The way we come at [Technical difficulty—Editor] is we do an annual survey of the typical consumption of the Canadian household. That is then used to weight components of the CPI. We do this now on an annual basis. The last one showed without a question that shelter costs make up about 30%, if you like, of the weight of that basket, and as I mentioned earlier, that has various subcomponents—household operations, furnishings and equipment—which are just about under 15%.

Finance committee  It's fair to say that in the last two years we've seen a sharp acceleration in housing prices. As you mentioned, in some jurisdictions it's been a little bit more. Even within cities, we've seen a differentiation as people try to get out and get a bit more space in the suburbs and in single family homes, etc.

Finance committee  Sure. There has been increased saving. As I mentioned, people are working from home in some cases and they want to have a bit more space. [Technical difficulty—Editor] really resulted in that increased price that you see. Even in Winnipeg, you see those prices have gone up quite sharply in the last couple of years.

Finance committee  I think there are multiple questions there. I'll ask Greg to maybe talk a bit about some of the data on [Technical difficulty--Editor], but specifically to the last part of your question, for sure we saw lumber prices increase, as you've seen, just about 12% year over year. We saw, in the summer, renovation and garden shops and the lumber stores see significant [Technical difficulty—Editor] products.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Unfortunately, we cannot share that data with you before it is officially published. You will have to wait until Wednesday morning like everyone else. With regard to gasoline in particular, gas prices, which are set elsewhere as you know, dropped because of the restrictions that were being imposed throughout the world.

Finance committee  I will ask my colleagues, Ms. Ertl and Mr. Peterson, if they can provide more detailed answers to those questions.

Finance committee  No, not directly. I think we can discount the transfers to various income quintiles and the data show that, even without the payments, there would have been a slight increase, but clearly the payments that were made increased the overall wealth and the disposable income of the lower quintiles, more disproportionately than at other levels.

Finance committee  Thank you for your question. We do a distributed household economic account. I think the reference there is to what has been the change by quintile. We do see a disproportionate increase in the disposable income and the overall wealth of lower-quintile households. We see about 85% of the wealth going to the two lowest quintiles.

Finance committee  Thanks again. With regard to your first question, I think I would let the policy-makers who are going to come after speculate as to whether or not it's too soon. At Statistics Canada we try not to get into that kind of forecasting. In terms of a household, and the house itself as an investment, absolutely.

Finance committee  Of course. Thank you.

Finance committee  There is a shelter cost—