MEC is NOT the place to go for rental gear. The people working at the customer service desk are unaware of how to select AT ski gear and unable to answer questions about rentals. On top of this, they refuse to match rental prices within Calgary.
At the University of Calgary if you are renting Alpine Touring Gear for 6 days, you only pay for 4 days. This exception exists so that it makes more sense to rent rather than purchase.
I called MEC and shared this information with them and said that as a lifelong MEC customer I would really like to rent my gear from them and hoped that they would match this (as I only needed to rent my gear for 5 days to do the Wapta Traverse, thus requesting one day free). This request was met with a blunt "absolutely not". I am very disappointed in the service and had higher hopes for a store that I have spent thousands of dollars at and would have eventually purchased my ski touring gear from. I hope that changes are made to support their customers in trying new sports... because that initial support will lead to customers purchasing their gear there.
As of right now, I would not recommend MEC rentals to anyone within my large community of mountaineering friends.