Quebec bill targets ticket resale transparency

Quebec plans to address the issue of price gouging resale tickets through a bill “set to pass in the near future,” but instead of tackling the price of tickets directly, the bill “aims to increase transparency surrounding the resale market,” according to Katelyn Thomas of the Montreal GAZETTE. Ontario’s law, passed in April, made it illegal to resell tickets to events for over face value. Quebec’s Bill 10, meanwhile, aims to strengthen existing ticket resale rules by requiring that resale platforms “clearly identify themselves as secondary marketplaces and inform buyers that tickets may still be available at a lower price through the original seller ‘as soon as the consumer accesses the platform.’” The bill also increases “disclosure requirements surrounding the original price and vendor of the ticket and the name of the last person who owned it.” A 2011 amendment to Quebec’s Consumer Protection Act already prohibited merchants from reselling tickets above face value without the authorization of the event’s producer, but sales between individuals “operated in somewhat of a grey area.” Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette, who authored Bill 10, said that Quebec “stopped short” of banning reselling above face value because it would “push those sales to the black market -- an opinion shared by critics of Ontario’s law” (Montreal GAZETTE, 5/21).