[Source - ReportonBusiness.com]
The Report on Business takes questions on the financial crisis.
Who owns Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. and can it go under?
CMHC was set up by the federal government just after the Second World War to help deal with a housing shortage exacerbated by the huge number of soldiers returning home. It helped finance home construction and provided funds for low-income housing. In the 1950s, when banks got into mortgage lending, CMHC started insuring "high-ratio" mortgages where home buyers initially made only a small down payment. This summer CMHC stopped insuring mortgages with zero down payment or 40 year amortizations.
CMHC also subsidizes aboriginal housing, provides loans and grants for certain kinds of renovations, and gathers statistics on the housing market. It also buys mortgages from financial institutions, and repackages them as mortgage-backed securities, which it sells to investors.
Because CMHC is a Crown corporation - unlike Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which were private companies - it is backed by Ottawa and could not really "go under."
Read the whole story here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081010.RBANKSEXPLAINER10/TPStory/Business
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