Finance committee  Thank you for letting me start. I guess what I would say is that we have to take a step back and ask what caused this downturn and what we're dealing with. It's obviously a health issue. It's not a credit issue. I think we should be looking at solutions that help us get the eco

Finance committee  It goes without saying that it's incredibly important because barring....We are looking at large chunks of the economy that will remain for a year, possibly two or three years. As I mentioned in my opening statement, they tend to be sectors that punch above their weight in terms

Finance committee  Well, of course, we're basically hostage to the virus over the next year or so, but I think that, longer term, the concern is that Canada's potential growth rate had faded to less than 2%. We'd seen very modest productivity growth in recent years. If anything, the medium-term pot

Finance committee  I think your first point is an accurate one, that the ratings agencies really aren't concerned about why a borrower gets into a situation; they're just looking at the end result. We've already seen that during the worst of the pandemic, some ratings have already come under ques

Finance committee  It depends incredibly heavily on the pace and the strength of the recovery, and I think that's job number one. You raise an important point. There's quite a consensus around what this year's budget deficit looks like. There's almost no consensus around what it looks like in yea

Finance committee  It's very interesting. In the early stages of this downturn, we saw the housing market essentially lock down for a while. We saw almost an identical decline in sales and in listings, so there's been very little change in pricing. Before this all began, it actually looked as thou

Finance committee  I can't necessarily reconcile that. I understand that some of the tightening measures that were introduced by CMHC are of a longer-term nature. I think at this stage they're just trying to protect potentially the most vulnerable debtors from getting in too deep. I don't think th

Finance committee  Thank you. All's well that ends well. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members. Thank you for the invitation and the opportunity to speak with you today. I'll keep my remarks relatively brief because I largely agree with those who spoke on the economic outlook earlier.