If housing affordability is destined to be an election issue in 2019, Canada’s political parties are already fine tuning their arguments for how they will fix the problem. In a debate in the House of Commons on Thursday, the Conservatives took aim at the mortgage stress test that requires Canadians to show they can withstand higher interest rates. Homeowners renewing their mortgage financing who fail the stress test are confined to their original mortgage lender, without the opportunity to shop around. Kmiec said he’s heard stories of people being forced to sell their house because they can’t refinance after failing the stress test. Kenney has been calling for the stress test to include exemptions for areas that aren’t suffering from the skyrocketing prices seen in Toronto and Vancouver.

Source: National Post February 01, 2019 02:48 UTC