Canadian mortgage market fundamentals remain strong

October 10, 2008 | Mark Noble The federal government's decision to purchase $25 billion of mortgages from the Canadian banks is being viewed as a precautionary, rather than necessary move, to put liquidity in the mortgage markets. Experts maintain, while the housing market is slowing down, it doesn't resemble anything like the U.S. crisis. The federal Department of Finance emphasized that its decision to take over high-quality CMHC-guaranteed mortgages had nothing to do with the risk profile of the mortgages in Canada, but was rather a way to infuse more liquidity into the Canadian market because banks are hesitant to lend to consumers. Granted, the purchase is a drop in the bucket, given that Canada will have more than $913 billion of outstanding mortgage debt in 2008, according to a recent report from the Canadian... [read full story]