Oops!  It seems the federal Liberals' tougher new mortgage rules, meant to cool down Canada's more overheated housing markets, seemed to be having little impact.

And to the extent that they did impact the markets, they seem to have impacted the wrong ones.

Sales have fallen in many areas that already had the weakest economies and weakest housing markets in the country. While the rules introduced last October were meant to cool off Vancouver and Toronto with little effect, it appears that Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and Saskatchewan all saw home sales fall in the 7 months following the new rules.

B.C. saw the largest decline in sales, down 21.5%, but Greater Vancouver's housing market was already in the midst of a slowdown when the rules were announced, and Toronto's market has taken off.