The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that Ottawa has unveiled plans to introduce a deductible into Canada's taxpayer-back mortgage insurance system. The Globe's Tamsin McMahon, David Berman and Tim Kiladze write that the proposal to require risk sharing for mortgage lenders, outlined in a public consultation paper put out by the Department of Finance on Friday, represents the first step in the most significant retrenchment of Canada's mortgage insurance program since 1954. "Experiences in other countries have shown that high household indebtedness can exacerbate an adverse economic event, leading to negative impacts on borrowers, lenders, and the economy," officials wrote in their consultation paper. "A high level of public sector involvement, for example through government guarantees of mortgage loans, may dampen market signals and lead to excessive risk taking." Under Canada's current mortgage insurance system, taxpayers shoulder virtually all of the costs of mortgages that default, paying lenders for lost principal and interest, as well as for the costs of foreclosing on a property. Financial institutions are on the hook for little, if any, of the costs of dealing with defaulted mortgages.