Canada's top bankers are pushing the government to clamp down on the mortgage market to cool off the rise in home prices. 

The heads of the country's six largest banks have privately told policy makers that they fear the wide-ranging economic fallout of a U.S. style binge-and-collapse in housing. To head off any chance of that happening, they are willing to accept tighter rules on mortgages that would slow the real estate market, even though it would mean forgoing some short-term profits from giving out ever bigger mortgages as home prices jump.

The chief executives of the Big Six made their point last November, when they met with Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney. The country's top commercial bankers, who between them control more than three-quarters of the country's $940-billion mortgage market, said then that they wanted the government to look at far-reaching options, such as raising the minimum down payment to as much as 10 per cent and shortening the maximum amortization period to 30 years.

Carney didn't disagree, according to people familiar with the November talks.

"We're talking about being pre-emptive here," said a senior bank executive who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We're not in a bubble yet, or a credit crisis."