Political pressure rose a notch on Thursday after tickets for the Quebec Summer Festival and for a Professional Women’s Hockey League match quickly found themselves on resale sites at astronomical prices. The Minister of Culture and Communications, Mathieu Lacombe, recalled that MP Kariane Bourassa had been mandated to find solutions.
Asked Thursday before question period at the National Assembly about the “regular passes” of the Quebec Summer Festival which quickly found themselves on ticket resale sites, Minister Mathieu Lacombe admitted that it was time to act.
“There are many people who ask questions, with good reason, when there are events like this, which are financed largely by public funds, who find themselves in a situation where tickets are moved to sites resale at two or three times the price. It’s not anecdotal either, we’re not talking about a few passes, it’s a modus operandi. It becomes something that is structured and happens every year. »
Since Wednesday, regular passes for the Quebec Summer Festival, which sell for $150, have been selling for between $369 and $967 on resale sites.
Moreover, it should be remembered that Option consommateurs has taken collective action against the show ticket resale sites Billets.ca and 514-Billets.com. The organization maintains that these sites do not hold the authorizations required by producers to charge higher prices than those of authorized sellers.
These two sites – in addition to the Billetqualite site – had also received tickets for violations (varying between $6,000 and $40,000) in 2014 following complaints made for excessively expensive tickets for Louis- José Houde and Ginette Reno.
It is in this context that Minister Lacombe asked the Member of Parliament for Charlevoix–Côte-de-Beaupré, Kariane Bourassa, who is also parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Justice Simon Jolin-Barrette, to accelerate the work on resale of tickets. A file on which Mme Bourassa began working last December, after tickets for the national tribute to Cowboys Fringants singer Karl Tremblay, which were free, ended up on resale sites at excessive prices of up to at $500.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Kariane Bourassa, Member of Parliament for Charlevoix–Côte-de-Beaupré and parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Justice Simon Jolin-Barrette
I think it’s normal to ask the question from a consumer point of view, but also from a cultural point of view, because we want culture to remain accessible.
Mathieu Lacombe, Minister of Culture and Communications
The minister continued: “This is why we gave the mandate to our colleague Kariane Bourassa to work on this issue by meeting the various partners in the cultural sector. The work has started, but meetings with the different groups will take place soon. »
How can the government regulate this issue? What tools are available to you? Are legislative changes necessary? What is the role of the Consumer Protection Office? Here are some questions to which Mme Bourassa will try to respond.
“What we saw yesterday only confirms the need to look into the issue,” she indicated immediately after the question period in the National Assembly. You saw what happened with professional women’s hockey, tickets that sold for between $30 and $125 were resold for $500. It’s the same thing with the FEQ, the more time passes, the more we notice that the same situations arise. »
In the coming days, Kariane Bourassa intends to meet organizations in the cultural sector – she cites the ADISQ and the UDA – but also representatives of ticket resale sites. “We are going to draw up a portrait of the situation to propose solutions. We’ve already made a list of the groups we want to meet so far. Now we’re going to talk. »
The two representatives of the CAQ did not specify a precise timetable for carrying out their work.
Read “Quebec Summer Festival 2024: sale of passes brought forward by one hour, festival-goers angry”