Why Ontario Liberals shouldn’t try to ‘fix’ how I buy concert tickets

On Tuesday, Ontario’s attorney general, Yasir Naqvi, announced that his Liberal government would begin one of their beloved “consulting with Ontarians” exercises. This time, he wants to get feedback on the online purchasing of tickets to music, sport and theatre events.

READ MORE: Ontario government launches online survey in tackling ‘scalper bots’

This isn’t new. Sometimes, people sell tickets to events they intended to go to and simply can’t make (I’ve done this myself a few times, selling my tickets at cost). But there are certainly those who use ticket reselling as a revenue stream, potentially a lucrative one.

And there’s concerns that some of these people are using so-called “bots” — automated programs that buy up tickets for newly available events in bulk as soon as they’re for sale — to essentially corner the market, leaving people with no choice but to pay huge markups if they want in.

WATCH: Ontario seeks to shut ‘scalper bots’ out of major events

1:31 Ontario seeks to shut ‘scalper bots’ out of major events

OK, yeah, it’s a bummer if you can’t see Beyoncé. But you don’t have a right to attend live events. This isn’t something that you’re being deprived of, just like I don’t have a right to a trip to orbit (I asked).

In democracies, governments exist to defend our rights, not indulge our whims. This is, at the very best, a pretty lame attempt for a desperately unpopular government to cloak itself in a warm, fuzzy populist glow. It is, at the more-likely worst, a screw-up waiting to happen.

READ MORE: Ontario MPP wants to ban ‘scalper bots’ that buy concert tickets before consumers

Tuesday’s announcement noted that Ontario is specifically seeking feedback in four key areas. Quoting directly from their release, titled “Putting Fans First In Ontario,” those areas are:

• Access: making sure everyone has a fair shot at buying tickets for popular events.
• Affordability: addressing consumer concerns about resale prices and service charges.
• Transparency: making more information available to consumers when they buy tickets.
• Enforcement: making sure laws are followed.

Let’s start with the fourth point, “Enforcement: making sure laws are followed.” Here’s my feedback to the attorney general: As an Ontarian, yes, I think laws should be enforced and followed. Hope that helps.

More broadly, though, come on. Is this really something we need the government, especially one as fiasco-prone as this one, getting involved in? Access to Coldplay? Keeping Leaf tickets affordable? Making my purchase of a ticket to a public event for a clearly labelled price more transparent? Why?

It’s easy to just roll your eyes at this populist pandering. But this isn’t harmless. It’s yet more proof of a government that has become completely disconnected from the reality of day-to-day life in Ontario. It’s an insult to the taxpayers who, unlike ticket hunters, don’t actually have a choice about sending the state their hard-earned money.

Ontario has real problems. Lots of them. It has huge infrastructure needs, massive debt, and major cost-of-living challenges for millions of residents. Health-care costs remain the ticking time bomb that’ll blow up the provincial budget as boomers age into their retirement years. The province’s hydro system is a disaster, so much so, cabinet is apparently considering amortizing out important costs over longer in order to provide relief on monthly bills now.

These are the problems. Ticket reselling? Not so much.

Since Kathleen Wynne led the Ontario Liberals to their fourth consecutive election win in 2014, they have become remarkably adept (and practiced) at apologizing for their debacles after they occur. Sometimes long after. Yet they remain seemingly willfully unable to avoid the debacles in the first place.

At no point in their 14 years in power have they ever accepted the self-evident fact that they have a habit of making terrible decisions — a bad habit that could be partially mitigated by just focusing on what government must do rather than trying to micromanage every part of our lives. Attempt fewer “solutions” and they’ll screw up less often. This isn’t hard, guys.

Tickets to events are expensive. I myself have tried to get concert tickets to big-name musical acts in recent months that I’ve just had to walk away from, as it was simply too rich for my blood. It’s frustrating. Yet at no point during the process did I ever think to myself, “Man, I wish the government would come and fix this for me.”

I’m a citizen, capable (and once upon a time, expected) to make my own damn decisions without my provincial government sending a representative to walk me through the steps lest I make a bad choice.

READ MORE: Ontario man charged with fraud in alleged Tragically Hip online ticket scam

It’s important to remember that capitalism, despite its flaws, does some things really well. One of those things is setting a price for a scarce commodity. Tickets to live events is a great example of that. For me, $500 was too much to see the Hip in August. (It was also precisely how much my hydro bill was that month, I note, but that’s another column.) But there were clearly people willing to pay the price, which is why the tickets sold. If the price was too high, it would drop until people bought.

It’s not fair. It’s not equitable. It’s not fun when you can’t get into a show or a game you’re keen on. But life isn’t fair, never has been, and the Liberals won’t change that. They’ll just screw up trying.

At the end of the day, the Ontario Liberals weighing into this is basically a group of people who have proven that they aren’t responsible with my money telling me they’re worried I might not be responsible with what they’ve left me.

It’s unnecessary. It’s insulting.

Focus on what your job actually is, ladies and gentlemen. Fund the schools. Staff the hospitals. Provide power and roads. Leave my leisure hours to me.

Matt Gurney is host of The Morning Show on Toronto’s Talk Radio AM640 and a columnist for Global News.