Finance committee  Sure. Thanks for that question. Yes, I totally agree 100%. When we look at home ownership rates in Canada relative to other countries, we are on the high end of things, particularly when you compare them to more expensive places. For whatever reason, we have this mentality, thi

Finance committee  I may be the chief economist, but I'm not the treasurer. Listen, it comes from a number of sources. Banks borrow, just like everybody else. We borrow deposits, which have risen a tremendous amount during the pandemic. Both personal and non-personal deposits are up by several hu

Finance committee  Yes, I'm sorry. I'm not 100% sure what you're getting at, and I'm not familiar enough with the bank's financing operations to be able to give you the right answer in conjunction with that—

Finance committee  Yep.

Finance committee  I can equivocate if you want, but....

Finance committee  I think it's pretty clear now that governments around the world, including our own, overshot. Now, it was a game-time decision. I understand that. It was staring at the abyss and didn't know what to do, so the easy thing was to err on the side of doing more. With hindsight, I t

Finance committee  I think, quite honestly, people are a little bit spooked about inflation. Whether that's because there were supply chain issues last year, or weather effects or whatever it is, or a combination of all these things, the reality is that both households and businesses are starting t

Finance committee  Yes. Quite simply, for all levels of government, revenue is collected on the basis of nominal income. Nominal income is basically real economic activity, plus a measure of inflation. In the case of the national economy, it's the GDP deflator. When nominal GDP rises more rapidly,

Finance committee  It's a double-edged sword. We're caught between a rock and a hard place here. The simple reality, as you point out, is that there is at present.... Even if we could get municipalities and provinces, everybody, lined up and we said, “Build whatever you want and wherever you want”,

Finance committee  We are. There's no way.... It is true that in certain markets supply and demand conditions are better met. That's true in Quebec, for instance. Quebec doesn't have nearly the same problem as some other provinces do on the housing side. As a nation, there is clearly a deficit of

Finance committee  Presumably they're investing to rent. At the conference you're talking about.... One of the implications of decreasing affordability is that increasingly folks are going to have to rent as a living arrangement. If you can't afford to buy and you can afford to rent, you're going t

Finance committee  That was by design, though. When you stimulate, you're doing that to try to raise economic activity and raise inflation.

Finance committee  It's fair to say that the housing challenge in the country is not new. It's been, perhaps, turbocharged the last number of years because of population growth. It is certainly not a new phenomenon and it is not unique to any level of government in the country.

Finance committee  Since 2015, we've seen a tremendous increase in immigration, which I think is fantastic. I'm unreformed pro-immigration on that front. The challenge has been that the strength in immigration has led to very rapid population growth relative to what we've experienced in the last 20

Finance committee  Yes. If you go back to 2016, which is too early in the population boom, our level of housing in Canada, if you compare it internationally, was very low relative to the population. It's worse now, but it wasn't great five or six years ago.