The head of

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

says the Crown Corporation would welcome banks taking on more risk when it comes to funding

residential construction.

“We would love to see the banks taking more risks,” Coleen Volk, who was named president and chief executive of the Crown Corp. 15 months ago, told the Canadian Apartment Investment Conference in Toronto this week. She did not take questions after the event.

Volk was participating in a one-on-one question-and-answer session with Ana Bailão, head of affordable housing and public affairs at Dream Unlimited, and the runner-up in the 2023 Toronto mayoralty election.

“Is CMHC willing to take a little more risk, given that 88 per cent of what we are doing in this market needs CMHC (insurance) and not much is getting done,” Bailão asked.

Volk pointed out that CMHC is supervised by the

Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions

and noted that OSFI has just increased the Crown Corporation’s capital requirements.

“We don’t want that to limit our ability to do good things in the marketplace,” said Volk. “We have accounted for a lot of

housing starts,

(but it’s) not nearly what we need. Our chief economist will tell us we are doing half as many starts annually as we need.”

CMHC said this month that housing starts in the first half of 2025 were lower than in 2024. Toronto housing starts are on pace for their lowest level in 30 years.

“We are going all out on the housing program side of the business,” said Volk, pointing out that the government sets the rules for most of its loan programs outside of mortgage insurance offerings.

Volk said CMHC can take “more responsible risk” during a time she called a housing crisis. She was also asked about the federal government’s plan for Build Canada Homes, a program that might see Ottawa get back into the business of building housing.

“It sounds like the Build Canada Homes entity will be set up a little more like the

Canada Infrastructure Bank

,” said Volk, noting CMHC has been somewhat constrained by not being allowed to do things “outside the box, even if we wanted to” because of rules that govern the group.

Volk said it seems like the program will be more around affordable housing or “deeply affordable,” which includes areas where CMHC is not involved.

“If they are taking over things that we did, it would be from that end of the spectrum, the more affordable end,” said the CEO. “And not the market housing spectrum.”

She said CMHC has some legacy affordable programs, as old as 30 years, that it expects Build Canada Homes will not want to take over.

Volk said CMHC’s Apartment Construction Loan Program, which allows developers access to low-cost loans to build rental apartment projects across Canada, will continue.

“We are really firing on all cylinders there. We have worked out some kinks and built out some expertise,” said Volk, adding that it looks like Build Canada Homes will focus on big deals.

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The chief executive said there is a “false distinction” between affordable housing and market housing because so much housing is mixed.

“We will both be playing in similar spaces with very similar clients,” said Volk, who would like to double to the amount of money going into CMHC’s Apartment Construction Loan Program.

• Email: gmarr@postmedia.com