If you recall, in the 1970s we had extremely high inflation. You think it's bad now. It was three times worse back then, with inflation of 13% or 14% and mortgage rates of 20% or 21% in the late 1970s.
As part of an anti-inflationary program, the federal government put in place wage and price controls, where it was trying to address the situation in the same way that currently the Bank of Canada is doing through interest rate increases. A wide range of initiatives took place, one of which was to ask the provinces, because we don't have federal jurisdiction in this area, if they would support the federal government in its efforts to control inflation by enacting rent controls.
It was entirely voluntary on the part of the provinces. Every province in this country put in place rent controls as a result of that request. They started unwinding them in the early 1980s, actually to the point where provinces like Alberta no longer have rent control, but they were in place for four or five years and did help to suppress inflation at that point in time.