Apr 22, 2019, 15:02 PM by Mortgage Professionals Canada

Member volunteers met with over 35 MPPs to discuss housing.

On Tuesday, April 8, Mortgage Professionals Canada member volunteers and staff held a day of meetings at Toronto’s Queen’s Park. Meetings were held with over 35 MPPs during which we shared insights into the challenges Ontario’s mortgage and housing industry continue to face.

The Ontario government has pledged to be “Open For Business”. Our discussions concentrated on the following issues:

• The state of themortgage and lending industry in Ontario
• Helping Ontario’s middle class and reducing housing affordability issues by supporting our recommendations to the federal government, including improvements to OSFI’s mortgage stress tests and 30-year amortizations for insured mortgages
• Recent improvements we have seen, both in the government’s new agency, FSRA, and in our discussions with policymakers regarding the regulatory review process
• Having Ontario take a leading role in harmonizing rules for our industry with other provinces
• Changes to planning, including as-of-right zoning, near future and underutilized higher-order public transit, and improving supply in municipalities by encouraging “missing middle” housing
• Provincial and municipal land transfer taxes
• Issues regarding red tape in the mortgage and housing industries

We appreciated the help by Premier Doug Ford, Hon. Steve Clark (MPP for Leeds-Grenville-Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes and Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing), Doug Downey (MPP for Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte and Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Finance), Stan Cho (MPP for Willowdale and Parliamentary Assistant to the President of the Treasury Board), and their respective staff.

We had a great day of productive meetings which have been captured on social media #MPCOntarioDay. Watch the Press Conference Video here.