My guest today is Michael Chong, the Member of Parliament for the federal riding of Wellington-Halton Hills, and an advocate for the privatization of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.  First, some background:

As we have discussed on we've previous shows, the big banks are required to have mortgage insurance on all mortgages where the borrower has less than a 20% down payment, and the biggest mortgage insurer in Canada is CMHC.

According to Michael Chong, while there are two private mortgage insurers in Canada (Genworth and Canada Guaranty), CMHC insures 80% of all insured mortgages in Canada, and they currently insure over $500 billion in mortgages.  That’s huge.

Mr. Chong’s position is easy to understand: with mortgage insurance, it is almost impossible for a bank to lose money on a mortgage, so they have a strong incentive to lend as much money as possible to maximize their profits.