[Dion]

“Figure out a way that you can continue to provide housing and get a decent return without gouging your tenants,” he suggested to landlords. “And there’s been way too much of that happening.”

“It tarred an industry,” Gerry Baxter, executive director of the Calgary Residential Rental Association, said Friday. “That’s pretty much what it is. It’s an opportunity to single out landlords and make them the scapegoats.”

Baxter was reacting to comments Nenshi made a day earlier during an interview on CBC Radio, where he and Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson briefly discussed Alberta’s tight rental market, rent control and whether landlords were gouging tenants.

On Friday, Nenshi said his earlier comment on rent gouging was largely based anecdotal evidence and not, in fact, a systemic problem. “What I’m calling for is ethical business more than anything else,” Nenshi told the Herald. “If you’re a landlord and your costs have gone up ... then of course you pass that on to your tenant. That’s part of your business.

“But every day I get calls in my office from people who have been given no notice, a month’s notice, of 30, 40 per cent increases in their rent,” Nenshi added. “And nobody’s costs have gone up that much.”

The mayor tweeted Sunday morning that he's heard from many "responsible landlords" who make money from their rental properties without hiking rent with minimal notice.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/ca...119/story.html