Dr. Mark Cassidy:

With the role of mortgages, our mandate relates to the functioning of the financial system, and mortgage provision is a key element of that. We are interested from both a financial stability perspective to ensure the overall system remains stable and from a consumer protection aspect in ensuring consumers have full information and transparency about mortgages they are receiving. It is those areas rather than the cost of mortgages that we deal with. We provide information on the cost of mortgages but we do not involve ourselves in those pricing decisions.

With regard to the housing market, our role is consistent with the financial stability mandate in ensuring the dynamics in the mortgage market are not inconsistent with stability. That is why we think our mortgage measures are critical first in ensuring the resilience of borrowers and lenders and in preventing the type of unstable price-credit dynamic I spoke of earlier that can arise in the housing and mortgage market. That is our main responsibility with the mortgage market. We also have a mandate in the provision of economic analysis and commentary and in that regard we are interested in broader housing market dynamics.