History of Alberta tenancy law and activism: Part One, Introduction
Conflict over housing rights are not new in Alberta, or anywhere else for that matter. By looking at the past we can better understand today’s problems and how we can respond to them right here in our province.
This post is first in a series looking at the history of renter activism and residential tenancy law in Alberta.
To kick things off, we look at three statistics: how Alberta’s renter population has grown over the decades, legislative activity from the 1950’s to the 2010’s, and the creation of renter organizations. We see a general pattern: periods of high renter population growth coincide with lots of landlord-tenant bills getting introduced in Alberta’s legislature and lots of new tenant groups getting set up.
Future posts will look at key moments in history since the mid-twentieth century.
Alberta’s renter population
Renters have been a minority in Alberta since World War II, averaging about a third of the population but ranging from a high of 39% in 1986 to a low of 26% in 2011. Usually, figures for Calgary and Edmonton have been pretty close to the provincial numbers.
In 1951, about 71% of Albertans owned their homes. But then for about 25 years starting in the early 1960’s, Alberta’s renter population grew faster than its homeowner population. That changed from the mid-1980’s to the early 2010’s, when the homeowner population grew faster. After the 2008 recession, we’ve seen renter growth pick up again — putting us back to where we were in the 1950’s and 1960s: about 30% renters and 70% owners.
There’s lots of reasons why renter and homeowner populations grow and shrink. Interest and inflation rates have a big impact on whether someone can afford to buy a home, by making it more or less expensive to take out a mortgage and more or less difficult to save up for a down payment. High inflation and interest rates also contribute to rent increases. Migration levels (newcomers are more likely to rent their homes) and family formation (e.g. getting married, having kids, and buying a house in the suburbs) also play a part. Alberta’s boom-and-bust, oil-based economy adds another layer, leading to wild fluctuations in vacancy and rental rates.
During the 1970’s and 1980’s, for example, a long period of ‘stagflation’ (high inflation/interest rates, and high unemployment) corresponds roughly with renter population increases. Alberta’s recession in the early 1980’s also helps to explain these increases.
Tenant organizations in Alberta
The 1970’s and 1980’s marked a high point for renter activism in Alberta, corresponding with high renter population growth rates at that time. Over 70 non-profit tenant organizations were incorporated in the province between 1968 and 2004, but mostly between 1970 and 1990.
Groups were set up all over, primarily in Calgary and Edmonton it seems, but also in communities like Athabasca, Vegreville, and Exshaw. Almost all (65) of these groups were dissolved because they didn’t file the required annual documents with the government. This could mean they weren’t around for very long. Only three of these 70+ organizations are still ‘active’ as of 2022, according to the province.
Of course, this list doesn’t include organizations that were never incorporated. Recent examples of non-incorporated groups are: Renters Action Movement in Calgary (2016), the Edmonton Renters Union (2020), and the Hinton & Medicine Hat Renters Association (2020).
Provincial legislative activity
The bills introduced in Alberta’s legislature can show us how much attention politicians are paying to a problem.
In the 1950’s and 1960’s, only a few government bills about landlord/tenant issues were introduced, including transitional rent regulations after the second world war and Alberta’s first Landlord and Tenant Act in 1964.
Then came the 1970’s and 1980’s: a period of reform which coincided with both a growing renter population and growing numbers of tenant groups. This included many changes to the original 1964 Landlord and Tenant Act, a whole new Landlord and Tenant Act in 1979, and a big amendment in 1991. Lots of private members’ bills were also introduced to spark debate on topics like security of tenure for renters.
By the 2000’s, much less attention was being paid to renters’ issues, though a new Residential Tenancies Act was passed in 2004 and rent increases were limited to once per year in 2007.
See here for a list of bills introduced between 1949 and 2022.
What this means for housing justice
Tenant activism in Alberta has ebbed and flowed over time. Politicians seem to pay more attention to residential tenancy issues, and housing issues generally, when the province’s renter population is growing faster than its homeowner population. It also seems like tenants tend to form (usually short-lived) organizations mostly during these periods.
From 2011 to 2016, for the first time in 25 years, we saw the growth rate of tenant households overtake that of homeowners. If renter population growth rates coincide with renewed attention to residential tenancy issues, if this trend continues we might be about to see another surge in renter activism.
Current economic trends seem to point towards rapid renter population growth. Inflation and interest rates are both rising, and fast. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shocked global oil prices, adding to prior warnings of 1970's-style stagflation (with some disagreement). Canadians’ incomes have stagnated since the 1980’s, while home prices have skyrocketed (though to a lesser extent in Alberta). And finally, though our housing market isn’t as bad as other provinces, according to one opinion poll over 60% of non-homeowners in Alberta have now ‘given up’ on ever owning a home.
Looking at history and current trends, it seems Alberta could be on the verge of some intense social and political conflict over housing issues.
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Data notes:
# Tenant Organizations Incorporated Per Year
- See here for my source data: a list of 63,195 nonprofits registered with the Government of Alberta between 1900 and 2022. Looking at this data, I searched for organizations with “renter” or “tenant” in the same, which resulted in 94 organizations.
- After removing groups with names like “renter-owners association” and ones clearly related to business properties, this left 74 organizations. See here for this ‘cleaned’ list.
- The above 74 organizations include 4 called “clubs” or “social clubs”. Based on their names, it seems unlikely these groups would do much activism, but I left them in the total as tenant organizing is ultimately about personal relationships.
- I did Google and Newspaper.com searches of about 10 of the 74 groups to confirm they were actual tenant organizations engaged in things like helping tenants, disputing landlord abuses, lobbying for legislative change, rent strikes, etc.
Number of Landlord-Tenant bills introduced
- See here for the source list of bills.
- Figure include: Landlord and Tenant Acts and amendments, Residential Tenancies Acts and amendments, Rent Control Acts and amendments
- Figure doesn’t include: amendments to the above acts contained in “Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment” Acts, which get passed by the Government every year or so (since the 1980’s). Click here and search for ‘misc’ to see a list of these Acts
