As London debates ways to reinvigorate the UK home-loans market and a crisis of confidence batters Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in Washington, an air of quiet self-congratulation has pervaded the mortgage-finance industry a few hundred miles north in Canada.

Delinquency and foreclosure rates have scarcely risen. Risky sub-prime mortgages, the scourge of the US housing market, make up less than 5 per cent of Canadian housing finance. Though prices are starting to soften, bidding wars are still common on desirable properties in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary.