Province promises to deliver ticket-resale policy with ‘teeth’
Previous Liberal government’s changes unenforceable ‘fluff,’ consumer minister says
The government is looking at a policy on concert and sports resale tickets that “has some teeth” after calling Liberal legislation to curb inflated prices “fluff.”
“We decided to suspend that 50 per cent cap because everything we heard was that it was unenforceable,” said Minister of Consumer Services Todd Smith, referring to a provision limiting resale prices to a maximum of 50 per cent higher than the original price — a rule that was to come into effect last July.
“If we were going to do something, we wanted to do something that was actually going to be able to deal with the issue at hand,” he said at Queen’s Park on Thursday.
Among the first moves by the Ford government after taking office was to pause the provision that was put in place by the previous Liberal government.
The Liberal changes were in response to huge public outcry after the Tragically Hip’s farewell concert in their hometown of Kingston sold out within minutes.
Smith said while making change isn’t
at the top of the priority list, “it is certainly something that we are looking at” and consultations are underway.
“And if we are going to do something … it can’t just be for the sake of doing something, so we are looking at all of the options available.”
As for the timelines? “Hopefully before the Leafs are in the Stanley Cup final — because that is going to happen,” he said. “We want to make sure that whatever we do, it makes sense to consumers out there, but no timelines have been set on getting anything done yet.” NDP Leader Andrea Horwath called the situation “outrageous.”
“We have families — there was a Leafs game (Wednesday) night and scalpers were making out like mad with the removal of the cap,” she said.
“It’s everyday families that are going to suffer — they are not going to be able to afford tickets. They’re not going to be able to take their kids to hockey games and ball games because (Premier) Doug Ford decided to side with his buddies in the scalping business as opposed to everyday families.”
The Liberals, Horwath said, “tried over and over in a very inept way to deal with this situation,” but at least “they showed that there are things that can actually happen.”
Interim Liberal Leader John Fraser said “our government made changes to put fans first. This government doesn’t care about the fans.” Green party Leader Mike Schreiner called the apparent “collusion between ticket resalers and ticket sellers “a distortion of the marketplace and I would think conservatives would actually want to see a fair marketplace instead of an unfair marketplace.” The Star, in an ongoing investigation with the CBC on Ticketmaster and ticket resales, has led to a federal Competition Bureau investigation into the company and its scalping program.
Ticketmaster also faces a $250 million class-action lawsuit over its practices.
Smith was asked about ticket resales in the legislature on Tuesday by NDP MPP Tom Rakocevic (Humber River-Black Creek). Smith said the government is “making sure that we bring in some legislation that has some teeth so we can keep ticket prices low for those who want to attend these events.”
He accused the Liberals of bringing in “pieces of legislation that actually were just all about fluff.”