Alberta is calling — but before that happened, Ontario’s Bruno Sentone looked at the cost of living and took the bait.
The 33-year-old private banker said he was trying to make life work in Ontario. In 2020, he left Toronto’s high rental prices and moved an hour north to Barrie. But at some point the rents went up there too.
So last June he packed his car and drove across the country to Calgary, where rent is cheaper, taxes are lower and his salary is higher.
“Either that or bite Barrie the bullet and face the consequences of staying in a place that I know is unaffordable,” Sentone said.
He’s not alone. Of the 50,000 people who have left Ontario for Alberta or Atlantic Canada in the past 12 months, 20,000 have chosen the Prairie Province.
But less than a year after the move, as he watches home and rent prices soar, Sentone worries Alberta is following in Ontario’s footsteps and is becoming less affordable by the day.
“Things are affordable now, and they might be for a while, but if the influx of people like me keeps coming in but we’re not building or providing enough real estate, then that’s a problem.”
Recurrence of the phenomenon in southern Ontario
For Albertans new and old who are concerned about the rising cost of living as a record number of people move here, economist Mike Moffatt says they are right to be concerned.
He is also senior director of the Smart Prosperity Institute, an Ottawa think tank dedicated to business.
“It’s a phenomenon that we’ve seen in southern Ontario for years,” Moffatt said. “When Toronto families started moving to places like London, our house prices tripled in less than 15 years.”
He recalls a “musical chair effect” where Toronto families moved to a more affordable place like Kitchener Waterloo, and then as that city got more expensive, the people living there were pushed to a place farther away – and so on .
It could all very well happen in Alberta, he says.
And the trend isn’t going away anytime soon, says Moffatt. Especially since Ontario residents moving to Alberta are younger and looking for affordability and quality of life — not job growth in the oil and gas sector, as has been seen in the past.
“Alberta needs to make sure they build enough housing to support this population. Unfortunately, we didn’t do that in Southwest Ontario and that has caused many of our current affordability issues.”
Calgary had the fastest rising rents
As the province continues its “Alberta is Calling” campaign, attracting people from Ontario and Atlantic Canada to relocate here, the impact in Alberta is already being seen.
Rentals.ca’s Paul Danison tracks vacant unit rental rates from Rentals.ca and Rentfaster.ca and publishes a report each month.
He noted that Calgary had the fastest rising rents for condos and apartments in the country in February.
“Average rents in Calgary increased 28.1 percent annually and 3.8 percent over the last three months to $1,862,” the report reads.
Though that’s still below the national average, Danison says it’s a new problem in Calgary. He’s been reporting for nearly five years, and he says he’s never seen rents this high or vacancy rates this low.
He says that’s despite the fact that Calgary has built record supply and is expected to continue that trend.
“But it’s still not enough for demand,” Danison said in an interview with CBC.
It’s not just a Calgary problem anymore. Lethbridge and Red Deer are also facing surprise annual rent increases, he says — 20 percent and 19 percent, respectively, for a one-bedroom apartment.
For Ontarians looking for affordability and with a big city lifestyle, Danison has two suggestions in the west: Edmonton and Winnipeg, where “it’s cheap and rents are moderate compared to the other big cities.”
