Response to Globe's"High Risk" mortgage article

There has a been a great deal of resonse to The Globe & Mails December 14th Article: Special investigation: How high-risk mortgages crept north . There is already close to 1000 comments on their website.

Brain Hurley, from Genworth Financial replied with this statement published in the Globe and Mail on December 16th:

"It was the easing of traditional underwriting standards in the U.S. - not extended amortizations - that put so many subprime borrowers in loans they could not afford. Here in Canada, the overwhelming majority of 40-year mortgages are prime loans held by customers with solid credit - and who would have qualified for mortgages with 25-year amortizations. Arrears here are near all-time lows.

Genworth supported Ottawa's decision to limit its government guarantee to mortgages with a maximum 35-year amortization. Healthy competition between CMHC and Genworth has provided an important second set of eyes that act as a check against unwise lending."

And from Mike Storeshaw, director of communications to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty published in the Globe and Mail on December 17th:

"Your article implies the government exposed the Canadian housing market to undue risk (How High-Risk Mortgages Crept North - front, Dec. 13). The fact is our housing market has not witnessed a proliferation of products and marketing practices that led to problems in the U.S.

This is made clear in the recent Financial System Review report from the Bank of Canada. The bank's report states, "The housing and mortgage market excesses seen in the United States and in several European countries do not have a counterpart in Canada."

It adds: "Lending practices in Canada have been much more conservative than in the United States and some European countries, and the resulting imbalances far less acute. The subprime mortgage market in Canada accounts for less than 5 per cent of the residential mortgage market, compared with 14 per cent in the United States, and it is characterized by more stringent lending standards than those that have been applied in the United States."

Canada continues to have one of the lowest rates of mortgage delinquency in the world."