FINANCIAL POST

In March 2013, then-finance minister Jim Flaherty did something few politicians would dare: He scolded Canada's banks for racing "to the bottom" on mortgage rates when the housing market was already frothing.  "My expectation is that banks will engage in prudent lending - not the type of 'race to the bottom' practices that led to a mortgage crisis in the United States," he said naming the Bank of Montreal.  While the move appeared to have the desired effect (at least temporarily), some of the world's big institutional critics continue to press Ottawa to do even more to tighten home mortgage rules.  Yet the current finance minister, Joe Oliver, appears far less ruffled than his predecessor, almost to the point of seeming indifferent.

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