Last reviewed: 16 September 2026
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Mortgage broker conflict-of-interest and disclosure requirements in Canada, explained
A Canadian mortgage broker typically gets paid a commission by the lender whose product you end up with — not by you directly. Several provinces have specific, written-disclosure rules built around exactly that structural conflict, distinct from the licensing and lookup mechanics covered in our other Canada explainers.
The structural conflict this is built to address
Because a mortgage brokerage is usually compensated by the lender it places a borrower's loan with, and different lenders can pay different commission rates, a broker has an inherent financial incentive that isn't automatically aligned with recommending the single best-fitting product for a specific borrower. This is the same underlying tension RESPA Section 8 addresses on the US side of this site (see our explainer) — the concern isn't that the arrangement itself is improper (broker commissions from lenders are a normal, legal part of how brokering works), it's that a borrower has a right to know the relationship exists before deciding whether to rely on the recommendation.
Ontario: a specific disclosure form and a suitability standard
Under Ontario's Mortgage Brokerages, Lenders and Administrators Act, 2006 and its regulations, a mortgage brokerage has to disclose the nature of its relationship with the lender and other parties involved in a transaction, including how many different lenders it has actually arranged mortgages with over the past fiscal year, using a specific relationship-disclosure form (the Investor/Lender Disclosure Statement) that also covers potential conflicts of interest and material risks. Ontario's regulator, FSRA, separately holds brokers and agents to a suitability standard — a recommendation is supposed to reflect the borrower's actual needs and circumstances, not which lender happens to pay the highest commission — and has specifically flagged, in its own supervisory work, that private-mortgage recommendations carry extra disclosure obligations: the private lender's identity, experience, and source of funds, on top of the standard conflict-of-interest disclosure.
British Columbia: a direct disclosure duty to both sides of the deal
BC's regulator, BCFSA, requires a mortgage broker or brokerage to disclose any direct or indirect interest they have, or may have, in a mortgage transaction — to both the borrower and the lender, not just one side — under its own published guideline on disclosing and managing conflicts of interest. The structural point is the same as Ontario's: a borrower is entitled to know about a financial interest before relying on a recommendation shaped by it.
New Brunswick: a specific timing requirement
New Brunswick's regulator requires a mortgage brokerage to provide borrower disclosure — covering suitability, conflicts of interest, commissions, and the cost of credit — and to obtain the borrower's written acknowledgment of it, with a specific timing rule: the required disclosure has to be made no later than two business days before the borrower actually enters into the mortgage agreement, not handed over at the closing table alongside everything else.
This varies by province — the same caution that applies everywhere else in this Library
As with provincial licensing itself (see our regulatory-structure explainer), the exact form, content, and timing of these disclosure obligations differ by province, and a rule confirmed in one province shouldn't be assumed to apply identically in another. If you're working with a Canadian mortgage broker, ask directly for the specific relationship and conflict-of-interest disclosure your province requires, in writing, before you rely on any product recommendation — and confirm the current requirement with that province's own regulator rather than this page alone, since provincial rules do get updated.