Insured Mortgage Purchase Program (IMPP)

Supporting financial institutions and the economy through the purchase of insured mortgage pools.

The Insured Mortgage Purchase Program has ended.

Launched as part of Canada’s COVID-19 Economic Response Plan, the Government of Canada had announced proactive and coordinated measures to ensure the health of our financial system and economy.

The Insured Mortgage Purchase Program was an emergency measure put in place to provide financial institutions with funding so that they could continue to serve Canadian consumers and business owners who needed access to credit during the COVID-19 pandemic. The program was not something that homeowners in Canada could access directly.

Under this program, the government stood ready to purchase up to $150 billion of insured mortgage pools through CMHC. From March to December 2020, CMHC purchased from financial institutions over $5.8 billion of insured mortgages pooled into National Housing Act Mortgage Backed Securities (NHA MBS).

The program was successfully used in a similar way during the 2008 global financial crisis to ensure the stability of the Canadian financial system.

Through the NHA MBS Program, CMHC supports financial stability by providing lenders with reliable access to mortgage funding throughout the business cycle. CMHC guarantees the timely payment of interest and principal on these securities and, in exchange, charges a fee to NHA Approved Issuers. Then, the pooled mortgages are turned into marketable securities that can be sold to investors.