Rent control is out of control. Now it’s making a comeback.Which may leave us right back where we started. The debate over rent control is a perennial in Ontario politics, as predictable as the election cycle. In today’s tight housing market, with a close political contest looming, history is about to repeat itself.For better or for worse.Overheated housing markets reduce the turnover from families that would typically move up to starter homes, freezing out future tenants. That’s when the news cycle, the political cycle, and economic cycles come into play.Reclaiming the moral high ground, the NDP has proposed a law to level the rental playing field: It wants to close a so-called loophole that exempts any post-1991 apartments from controls, arguing that tenants in newer rental stock are vulnerable to extortion from rapacious landlords.Defending their political turf, the governing Liberals insist they get it — and claim they’re on it: They are hinting at expanded rent controls that remove the 1991 exemption, and other reforms.We have seen this movie before. Here’s the storyline:In the mid-1970s, NDP firebrand Stephen Lewis seized on media accounts of landlords gouging tenants. He goaded the government of then-premier Bill Davis into promising rent controls lest his Tories lose power.It seemed like a good idea at the time. But history is littered with good political intentions — and contortions — that create economic distortions.When New Democrats won power in 1990 under Bob Rae, the rent control panacea had petered out. A low vacancy rate dropped even lower as developers abandoned the controlled rental market for the freedom of condominiums.In government, the NDP responded with two controversial concessions to reality: First, they abandoned their campaign promise to ban any rent increases above the annual guideline (they allowed up to 9 per cent initially, including repairs). Second, they tried to encourage n ...
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