On Campus

Students rally for rent control in Regina

Class projects ends up in front of legislature

University of Regina social work students organized a rally for rent control in front of the Saskatchewan legislature on Tuesday. Holly Warkentine, of the Social Work Students’ Society told the Regina Leader-Post that the protest had grown out of a class project. “We all just felt like it’s an issue that is out of control. There’s many students, obviously, that are affected by it so we felt like it was important to bring the issue to the people and see that something is hopefully done about it,” she said.

Another student, Grayson Engel, told the paper how his rent had from $865 to $1,100 in three years. “I’m still a student. Every summer I make the same amount of money that I was making before. It’s pretty difficult to work towards paying off student loans and affording that extra little bit every year,” he said. The rally attracted approximately 75 people, including members of the opposition NDP who have made rent control part of their platform for November’s election.

Defending the Saskatchewan Party government’s position was minister of social services June Draude who said that if a cap was placed on rental rates, developers would be discouraged from investing in the province. “There are developers that are interested because we have more people, because the province is growing, because we know that there’s opportunities here and they know that we’re not talking about rent control,” she said.

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