Don't Blame it on Canada 

Very briefly, I managed to catch a quick glimpse of an interview with Paul Martin (Canada’s former Prime Minister and before that - Finance Minister). The short but fascinating interview quickly rolled off the screen. 

The article was published by one of the Wall Street Journal's online publications called Marketwatch.com. 

Here are some of Paul Martin's comments regarding Canada and the U.S. financial crisis: 

"... in the mid-1990s, the Americans and British were weakening their regulation and weakening their equity requirements, we in Canada tightened up." 

"We had higher down-payment equity requirements for borrowers who bought a home. People who put lower down payments had to be insured, and the fact that a borrower is responsible for the debt was key." 

"What all that meant was that banks held onto those mortgages so they made sure those were good mortgages."

The full article and interview hyperlink may be short lived, but I spotted it here: 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ex-canada-leader-us-made-no-sense-on-housing-2011-11-16