This year Alberta Premier Alison Redford tabled her first budget and it placed a fresh emphasis on social assistance and big-time spending. Among other items, the $41.1 billion in spending this year boosted money for education and health care, expanded day care and raised welfare payments by a third. In all, it will result in an estimated $900 million deficit.
"We haven't heard anything about rent controls coming," said Gerry Baxter, executive director of the Calgary Residential Rental Association, whose members own or control an estimated 50,000 rental units.
Baxter said Alberta's biggest city is doing fine without rent controls, one of the few cities in Canada without them.
His members are citing a 3 per cent rental vacancy rate. A recent survey of members showed that the turnover in apartments last year was 43 per cent and the main two reasons why people left a rental apartment were either to buy a home or move to a new job, Baxter said. "Rental increases didn't register as a factor," he said.
from Western Investor April 2012
