Finance committee  Thank you very much. You are right, as usual. These are extremely important issues for the financial stability of both the world and Canada. With respect to asset-backed commercial papers, I believe that reforms have been made in the area of standards and security rules for secu

Finance committee  Without question, that's so. The only caveat, as you know, is that over that period there is some amortization of the underlying debt stock. But initially, with a mortgage, there's not much.

Finance committee  Yes, but I will leave it to you—

Finance committee  —to clarify the preciseness.

Finance committee  No. I was asked this question the other day, and I'm highly confident that my successor will be fully capable of discharging the responsibilities of the office and won't need my advice.

Finance committee  I think we've had a demonstration of how not to.

Finance committee  Without question, it's an important issue. Within the course of the past year we've had a very unusual situation in Canada. We had global oil prices go up, and normally that would be net positive for the Canadian economy. There's adjustment, but the flow-through effects, includ

Finance committee  I missed the first part of the question. I'm sorry, Chair.

Finance committee  I think the answer to the second is for determination, but this is a market conduct question. Market conduct is best addressed by securities commissions; it's a market integrity issue. My personal view is that ultimately we should come to an arrangement in Canada whereby this i

Finance committee  We have done some analysis. We have surveyed some databases that are representative of the Canadian economy. Obviously interest rates are incredibly low at present, both the Bank of Canada rate and the rates at which banks are lending to Canadians, and mortgage rates as well. The

Finance committee  Conceptually, by looking only at the benefits, there's a revenue benefit, obviously, and there is the potential, by changing the price of that product, that this product, which formerly wasn't manufactured here, would be manufactured here. Obviously, there is a wide range of cost

Finance committee  Well, I'm just speaking conceptually.

Finance committee  This is an important issue. It goes to several aspects of the financial system. First and foremost, and I'll speak generally about internationally, it goes to market integrity. We have seen what can only be described as some shocking criminal behaviour—we'll leave it to the court

Finance committee  I have not read the paper in question—now I'm going to have to. I would say this, not having the benefit of having read it, that those terms are terms used in economic modelling, in game theoretic models. It depends in part on the objective function of the policy-maker as is mo

Finance committee  Okay. One of the factors that has been important is the distribution system in Canada. MPs are probably more familiar than anybody with the breadth of the country and how spread out the major retail centres and smaller retail centres are in Canada. The ability to have concentra