When Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) recently announced it was no longer backing 40-year amortization mortgages, it presumably was attempting to put some order into the teetering housing and mortgage markets. In the process it quashed the hopes and dreams of thousands of Canadian entrepreneurs who had rallied to the new mortgage as a flexible method of financing small businesses.

The 40-year mortgage was initiated by lenders last year as home prices climbed to levels that put monthly payments out of reach