EDMONTON - Grassroots members of Alberta's Progressive Conservative Party voted overwhelmingly Saturday to back the government's approach to battling the current housing crisis.
In the party's annual general meeting, delegates rejected a motion to adopt the resolutions of an all-party legislature committee that had urged Premier Ed Stelmach's government to adopt rent controls.
"Rent controls and all other sorts of initiatives are sort of like a drug,'' delegate Jon Lord, a former Tory legislature member, told delegates prior to the vote. "They're very addictive and they're difficult to get off of once you start down that road.
"Rent controls give a little bit of short-term gain, but create huge problems down the road.''
Rent controls have become a hot button and, at times, divisive issue for the governing Tories as they grapple with a roaring oil and gas economy that brought 100,000 newcomers to the province in the last year alone.
Housing has become hard to come by. Home prices have soared out of reach for most first-time buyers. Those looking to rent are facing near-zero vacancies, while tenants are seeing rent doubled or even tripled in certain cases. Others face eviction as landlords convert apartments to more lucrative condos.
Housing Minister Ray Danyluk, who sat in on the resolution session, said the Tories still consider housing controls a "dead issue'' because they would discourage investment at a time the province is keen to have the private sector help build more affordable housing.
But he warned landlords that the government remains flexible to any solution to halt what he sees as predatory rent hikes.
"There are landlords that are inexperienced, that are new on the market and not very familiar with the (market's) longevity,'' he said. "Some of them are there for the short term and we need to address that.''
"We need to look at some practicalities, some compassion for people that are in a rental situation.''
The government introduced new rules in the legislature this past week to limit rent hikes to one a year and to mandate that landlords give tenants a year's notice if they want to convert apartments to condos.
They have also committed $285 million to help municipalities construct more affordable housing and to deliver short-term aid for renters and newcomers in crisis.
Treasury Board President Lloyd Snelgrove, the man in charge of Alberta's purse strings, said they will monitor the housing situation for now.
"Nothing is ever closed (but) we believe our rent stabilization needs some time to work,'' he said.
Danyluk said the province is urging municipalities to ease the shortage immediately by changing zoning laws to allow for more secondary suites, also called basement suites, in homes.
He noted the province has changed the renovation requirements of secondary suites so that more homes will be eligible.
"Students can use it, workers can use it, families can use it. It's very immediate,'' he said.
Also Saturday, delegates voted to explore using nuclear power plants to assist oilsands development.
Delegate Bill Dearborn of Medicine Hat said the oilsands need a nuclear option as a bulwark against any future federal raids on Alberta's resource-based economy.
"We're familiar with these Liberal governments in Ottawa that have imposed unfair taxes on the oil and gas industry in the past,'' he said.
But delegate Don Dabbs said he has participated in a past provincial study on nuclear power and that it's not the way to go to generate steam power for the oilsands.
"A reactor to generate steam is not the principal purpose of a nuclear reactor. It's for electrical energy.
"It's a very expensive source of steam.''
