But the policy will be weaker still if its protection ceases to be automatic, she said.

"The only thing to stop all this is to put a rent cap back into place like they had," Taylor said.

According to legislation, the annual rate of inflation in New Brunswick each year is used to measure whether an approved rent increase the following year can be implemented all at once by a landlord or should be phased in to give tenants who ask for help time to adjust to a big increase.

In 2023, any rent increase above 7.3 per cent, which was the annual inflation rate in New Brunswick in 2022, was eligible to be phased in.  

Linda Patterson got a three-year phase-in of a $150 rent increase on her Oromocto apartment under last year's protections for tenants. (Mike Heenan/CBC)

In 2024, a rent increase above 3.6 per cent, which was last year's inflation rate, is the new level at which phased-in rent increases will begin, depending on the decision of a tenancy officer.

Increases that are up to double the rate of inflation are meant to be implemented over two years with increases more than double the rate of inflation taking effect over three years.

The policy has been effective for many tenants but still gets mixed reviews from those who used it because rulings can take weeks and the process forces tenants into an openly adversarial relationship with their landlord.

Linda Patterson of Oromocto applied for help last year after learning her rent was going up 20 per cent, or $150. She was successful in having it broken up into three separate $50 increases over three years. 

But Patterson said many of her neighbours were intimidated by the idea of opposing their landlord and declined to seek help.

• Landlords escaping requirement to impose large rent hikes gradually 
• N.B. tenants not being told rent hikes as low as 4% in 2024 may qualify for phase-in protection 

"I told them that they should be applying," she said. "Some of them did. Some of them didn't."

New Brunswick remains one of only four provinces without a hard limit on annual rent increases.

This year, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia have all set maximum rent increase limits, with some allowed adjustments, of between 2.5 and five per cent. 

Nichola Taylor of the housing rights group ACORN says the automatic right to phased-in rent increases if they exceeded inflation wasn't much protection for tenants, but the new approach is even weaker. (Shane Fowler/CBC)

In his state of the province address last week, New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs said his government has a goal of limiting rent hikes to below three per cent per year but wants to do it indirectly, through market forces, by encouraging the construction of more housing.

"Our goals are clear … create the market conditions to hold annual rent increases to 2.5 per cent," he said.

It's been a slow process so far.

New housing starts in New Brunswick in 2023 were down from 2022 and ended the year both below the national average per capita and in last place among the three Maritime provinces.   

In the meantime, rents have continued to escalate.

In its latest financial filings, New Brunswick's largest landlord, Killam Real Estate Investment Trust, reported that rent on its 997 apartment units in Saint John climbed an average of 7.5 per cent over 12 months ending on Sept. 30.

That was the largest rent increase recorded by Killam on properties it owned over the full year, covering more than 200 buildings in 12 Canadian metropolitan areas.   

Rents in more than 2,000 apartments in Killam buildings in Moncton and 1,500 apartments in Fredericton increased an average of 5.1 and 6.3 per cent respectively during the same period, both above the company's average national increase of 4.7 per cent.