What a load of you-know-what. 

About 2 years ago, my wife and I were up in Owen Sound for the weekend. At one point I ended up talking to one of the hotel employees. He told me about a friend and his wife who went into PC Financial to be pre-approved for a mortgage. 

The friend was a bulldoze operator and his wife was a waitress. He estimated together they made $40/hr. So if you do the math, they probably averaged about 70-80K a year. 

So what did PC Financial do? 

Well, they were pre-approved for a 600K mortgage. Yes, $600,000.

And I also heard later that the banks had started taking out CMHC mortgage insurance on all the mortgages they issued, not just the traditional 'high risk' ones. (i.e. They don't care if you default as the mortgage insurance ensures they will get all their money back anyway)

So do you thing the banks shoveling as much money as possible at their customers might have something to do with sky-high housing prices?