Experts see parallels between 1970s inflation crisis and today

For the baby boomers who lived through it, the inflation crisis of the 1970s is burned into the memory.

"I couldn't even consider it (buying a house). My brother did, and his mortgage rate was something like 18 or 20 per cent," said Prentice. "What I remember is that it was a time of great anxiety, a time of great uncertainty."

Now a professor of supply chain management at the University of Manitoba, Prentice has been watching with growing unease what he calls the "eerie" similarities in economic conditions between now and then.

"There is a lot of resemblance between now and the 1970s," he said. "Nobody then had ever seen this before, and there was no clear path to where it would lead to."