i'm not contradicting myself...canadian banks had loose credit policies, like instant loans where you only had to declare your income and it wasn't checked...but we also had bank regulations requiring a minimum downpayment, and required mortgage insurance on any mortgages that have less than a 25% downpayment...regulations like that that prevented canadian banking from getting too deep into bad mortgages...at the height of the subprime crisis, US subprime mortgages accounted for more than 20% of the total mortgage market...in canada, subprime mortgages accounted for only 5% of the market...canadian banks and financial institutions had some mortgage back securities but they weren't as toxic to their balance sheets