Finance committee  I think that's a slightly inaccurate perception. What was said in the January budget was that BDC, with EDC and with the financial institutions collectively, would put out $5 billion through the BCAP. Of that amount, since the budget, we've put out--between February 1 and May 31-

Finance committee  The $600 million is correct.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, and thank you for inviting me back. I will keep my comments short and to the point. When I was here in March to discuss business access to credit, you may recall that I reported that in response to the credit crisis, we increased our tradi

Finance committee  Just so you understand the discussions, the challenge for us is to buy triple-A paper, so there's no risk for the Canadian taxpayer. The challenge is how do you make some of that paper triple-A, given the uncertainty of the various automobile manufacturers? That's what we're tryi

Finance committee  I'm not sure I fully understand the question, to be fair. Did I hear the word “rural” in the question?

Finance committee  Correct.

Finance committee  We can certainly go stand-alone ourselves. Let me try to respond. We have 100 branches across Canada, quite candidly, most of them in relatively large or medium-sized urban centres, very few in the more remote community. What we do have, though, is an alliance with the SADCs--t

Finance committee  We're working very hard with the CFDCs. We're trying to really work in harmony with them, so they can refer as many as they possibly can to us and we'll be happy to help. As I said earlier, we are working with the financial institutions, so if they're not comfortable with someth

Finance committee  That certainly is not correct. We'll be happy to help if we think it's an appropriate file. I'll give you a very simple example. We're in the midst of financing three fish-processing vessels that were being worked on by Glitnir Bank of Iceland in Newfoundland. Glitnir Bank basic

Finance committee  Thank you. Let me try to address your question. First, we do price for risk. Our average client, by Standard and Poor's, might be a B-; our best client would probably be a B+, and some of them would be CCC. We're dealing with a risky clientele, and basically we price for risk. A

Finance committee  Our loss rate is obviously much higher. Unfortunately, of the 28,000 clients we have, some of them do not make it. Just to reassure you that we are listening, I have a statistic here. Last year we offered 4,500 capital postponements to entrepreneurs who were struggling because o

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  I'll be happy afterwards to provide you with the name and so on, and we'll be happy to review the account.

Finance committee  The $5 billion is the amount that we're going to be working together at putting out collectively, and some of that will be done relatively quickly. For example, as we purchase commercial mortgages so that, in turn, the bank can lend more, that can happen relatively quickly. There

Finance committee  We've agreed between ourselves and Finance Canada that Finance Canada would decide on the eligibility. As in all of our consultations, when the questions come up I turn them over to my esteemed colleague on my right.