The Ticket Scalping Reversal

When Doug Ford's government suspended Ontario's ticket resale price cap in July 2018, it did so within days of the cap taking effect — after Ticketmaster called the decision "very rational and prudent" and StubHub had previously warned that price controls would push tickets to the black market. The Ford government's official rationale was that the 50% cap was "unenforceable." Millions of Ontario fans spent the next seven years paying whatever the secondary market would bear.

Consumer Services Minister Bill Walker made the cancellation official on April 15, 2019, dismissing the Liberal-era cap as "a nice soundbite, but there was no enforcement." No replacement consumer protection was introduced. No alternative enforcement mechanism was proposed. The cap was simply gone.

The about-face arrived only after the political cost became impossible to ignore. During Toronto's 2025 World Series run, Ford himself publicly called out Ticketmaster for "gouging" Jays fans — the same platform that had cheered his 2018 decision. On March 20, 2026, Ford announced plans to amend the Ticket Sales Act, 2017 to ban resales above the original purchase price, penalties up to $10,000 for violators — a stricter rule than the one he killed, presented as a fresh idea.

The seven years between Ford killing the price cap and restoring it weren't neutral. Ontario fans paid inflated prices throughout that window with no legal recourse. The scalping industry that flourished under Ford's policy was not an accident — it was the direct result of a deliberate government choice made shortly after industry players signalled their approval.

The 2026 reversal also carries a structural irony: Ticketmaster and parent company Live Nation now support the new cap, while StubHub opposes it. Critics have noted that a ban on above-face-value resale consolidates power with primary sellers like Ticketmaster — which controls both the primary market and its own resale platform, Fan Exchange. A cap that eliminates competitor resellers while leaving Ticketmaster's own secondary market intact may benefit the company more than consumers.

Ford's reversal also sets a pattern visible across his tenure: consumer protections are stripped, industry profits, public pressure eventually mounts, and Ford re-announces a version of what he dismantled — taking credit for the fix while avoiding accountability for the harm caused in between. The Global News coverage of the 2026 announcement noted directly that it "represents a reversal from a government that killed a similar idea shortly after taking power."