Good morning, members of the committee. Thank you very much. I thank the committee for its thorough consultation.
I'm a consultant for the Canadian Mortgage Brokers Association-National, which, in turn, represents tens of thousands, but I'm here as an individual who has been advocating for the mortgage-broking industry for over five years.
I ask that you please insist on a very simple and quick fix for the government and for Canadians who need a mortgage: that the Minister of Finance and OSFI put into effect the stress test changes announced in February 2020. The then minister of finance Bill Morneau announced changes to the benchmark rate used to determine the minimum qualifying rate for insured mortgages, also known as the “stress test”. They were expected to come into effect on April 6, 2020.
That new benchmark rate was to be the weekly median five-year fixed insured mortgage rate for mortgage-insured applications plus 2%. I ask that Minister Freeland implement this as soon as possible and that OSFI harmonize this change to guideline B-20 for uninsured mortgages. The failure to do so—what was announced by Morneau before the Bank of Canada began to raise interest rates in March 2022—led to a tremendous number of Canadians getting variable rate mortgages, because the existing stress test rule made that the logical financial choice for many, and that, in retrospect, was wrong. My community advocated for this repeatedly prior to the 2021 to 2023 mortgage rate hikes, whose consequences are now manifesting themselves.
I also agree with my colleagues in this sector who have advocated for eliminating mortgage stress-testing for excellent borrowers who will switch to lenders and don't need to borrow new money. The current rules remain anti-competitive and anti-consumer.
For now, I will leave it for others to advocate on these matters. If there are any questions, I welcome them.
Thank you very much.