It seems to be common due to the oligopoly of Canadian banks (there are 5 big banks for all of Canada and the concept of a small bank just doesn't exist, due to regulatory hurdles). It's a way to push the risk onto the consumer and guarantees that homeowners are first to suffer in a downturn - conversely Canadian banks are very "safe" from economic pressures, at least compared to their American counterparts. It's already a big problem because Canadian household debt has reached 2.1 trillion dollars [0], with a GDP of 1.9 trillion dollars [1] (all in USD).
Note these figures don't include government debt, which is also significant. Altogether, Canada may face a liquidity crisis on servicing the debt, if rates continue to rise.
[0] https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/canada/household-debt
[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/gdp