Given that the total mortgages outstanding in Canada amount to around $1-trillion today, the subprime portion is not a huge slice.
But the vast majority were made toward the middle of the decade with terms of three and five years and they're coming due over the next two years.
"Given the current environment it will be very difficult to finance these [people]," says Mr. Tal, who calls it "a big problem for specific borrowers but not one from a macro perspective."
But the industry is so concerned about the situation that it recently approached the federal government with a request for a bailout.
According to Mr. Putnam and others, it wants the federal government to participate in a $1-billion fund to help finance the coming flood of orphan mortgages.
During the credit bubble, subprime lenders funded themselves through the asset-backed commercial paper market.
The loans they made were packaged up and sold to securitization pools and then to investors in the form of ABCP.
But when the commercial paper market froze up in the financial crisis, lenders were suddenly left without a way to fund their businesses.
"Investors are no longer willing to continue on and these mortgages were not insured by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., so the borrowers are not going to be able to move to another lender in today's environment," Mr. Putnam says.
The definition of subprime depends on who you ask, but for practical purposes the term generally refers to high-interest loans made to people who are unable to get a better deal at one of the big banks. Many such borrowers are simply self employed entrepreneurs but a good part are people with bad credit histories.
In the United States, the subprime market took off in the run-up to the crisis, growing to more than 20% of total mortgages outstanding as the loans were packaged up into complex securities and sold to investors around the world. When real estate prices finally started to crumble the value of the securities cratered, ultimately destabilizing the global financial system.
Analysts say it's difficult to draw comparisons between the U.S. subprime market and what happened in Canada. The market here never grew to more than a sliver of the total and, more important, the type of loans offered by Canadian players were more conservative than those offered by their peers south of the border.
But there are nevertheless some disturbing parallels between the two markets. "Compared to what was going on in the U.S., it never got to the same level here, but having said that, they were going down the same slippery slope," says Mr. Putnam.
"The Canadian population wanted to buy a home, that was the No. 1 goal.
"People were taking on high debt loads, stretching the amortization out as long as possible and lenders were looking at all the opportunities. It made sense when the market was hot, but of course, no one could foresee the problems."
Exacerbating the situation, the early part of the decade saw the arrival of a number of U.S. players looking to get in on the Canadian market.
Because many of the players were not deposit-taking institutions, they qualified for looser regulations than banks and other traditional players.
That meant, for instance, that they didn't need insurance for risky loans and they could lend in excess of the value of the property. Borrowers loved it at the time but in today's post-crisis world, such loans are almost impossible to renew.
The good news for the Marentettes is that they succeeded in finding a new lender, though they're still paying almost double the interest rate of a conventional mortgage.
Thousands of other subprime borrowers may not be so lucky.
"Hopefully, if they have been making their payments, they can qualify for [another mortgage]," says Jim Murphy, president of the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals.
