Amid inflation, a housing crisis and conflict with Trudeau, Alberta adopted rent control — 48 years ago

Sky-high inflation. Exorbitant rent increases. Conflict between Alberta and Prime Minister Trudeau.

The year is not 2023.

It's 1975.

Albertans were grappling then, like they are now, with a surging cost of living, high interest rates and a housing crisis.

The Progressive Conservative government of premier Peter Lougheed had just been re-elected in the spring with a commanding majority. That summer, amid growing calls from tenants groups who felt gouged by what they described as frequent and unreasonable price increases from landlords, the PCs were adamant that rent controls were not the solution.

By autumn, they had changed their minds.

In the face of mounting pressure both locally and federally — as prime minister Pierre Trudeau's government prepared its own set of wage and price controls — the Alberta government reluctantly adopted legislation in December 1975 that put an 18-month cap on rent increases in the province: no more than 10 per cent in 1976 and no more than nine per cent in the first six months of 1977. After that, the rent-control law would be phased out.

It was a controversial move. Free-market advocates abhorred the government intervention, while tenants groups felt the rules were too lenient. Enforcement was also a challenge, with numerous cases ending up in court.

Today, Ron Ghitter looks back at the rent control legislation as an extraordinary measure at an extraordinary time. He was the PC MLA for Calgary-Buffalo and one of the architects of Alberta's landlord-tenant policy of the 1970s. And while he sees many parallels from that era to today, he doesn't believe a return to rent control is the right way to tackle the current housing crisis.

"I would be opposed to it personally," he said in an interview. "The problems that we've got are much deeper than what rent controls will solve."

Alberta's current United Conservative government has also rejected recent calls for rent control in the province.

So how did the government of 1975 come to adopt the policy, albeit reluctantly?

A combination of factors coalesced at the time, some of which may sound familiar to Albertans today, while others may seem quite foreign. And rent control wasn't the only measure the provincial government took in response to the housing crisis of the era. Additional policies included a temporary ban on apartment-to-condo conversions and a renters' tax credit. Those worked in concert with long-since-expired federal policies aimed at encouraging the construction of more rental housing.

Opinions then, like today, differed on which policies would provide the best solutions. In retrospect, there is still disagreement. But the experiences from nearly half a century ago still hold relevance — and may offer some lessons — when it comes to the housing crisis facing so many people today.