Ontario passes legislation to strengthen protection for consumers making big purchases. New changes will strengthen protection for travellers and home buyers, caps ticket resale prices
On December 13, 2017, Ontario passed legislation that will strengthen protection for consumers making significant purchases, such as travel services, event tickets and real estate.
The Strengthening Protection for Ontario Consumers Act will:
- Introduce stronger rules and professional standards in the real estate sector, including new measures to address conflict of interest issues that arise in multiple representation situations and heavier fines for Code of Ethics violations by real estate professionals.
- Strengthen confidence in Ontario’s new home warranties and protections by enabling the establishment of two administrative authorities — one to administer the new home warranty program and the other to regulate new home builders and vendors.
- Further protect consumers buying travel services by enabling the creation of new rules for representations, such as advertising, by out of province travel businesses that target Ontarians, creating a registration requirement for individual travel salespersons and improving compliance with the rules by enhancing enforcement tools, such as administrative penalties and compliance orders.
- Help prevent ticket fraud and excessive markups in the resale ticket market, including banning ticket bots, capping the resale price of tickets at 50 per cent above face value, requiring businesses selling or reselling tickets to disclose key information to consumers and establishing new enforcement measures.
Strengthening consumer protection is part of Ontario’s plan to create fairness and opportunity during this period of rapid economic change. The plan includes a higher minimum wage and better working conditions, free tuition for hundreds of thousands of students, easier access to affordable child care, and free prescription drugs for everyone under 25 through the biggest expansion of medicare in a generation.
Quick Facts
- The Honourable Douglas Cunningham, Q.C., conducted an independent, public review of the Ontario New Home Warranties Plan Act and the Tarion Warranty Corporation that identified opportunities to improve consumer protection for new home buyers.
- The new proposed rules for real estate agents are part of the government’s Fair Housing Plan.
- Consultations with the public and the travel industry helped inform ways to better protect consumers who book a vacation or buy other travel services in Ontario.
- Through an online survey, Ontario heard from more than 34,000 fans who shared their experiences and ideas about buying and selling tickets online.
December 13, 2017, Ministry of Government and Consumer Services
Sources:
- https://news.ontario.ca/mgs/en/2017/12/ontario-passes-legislation-to-strengthen-protection-for-consumers-making-big-purchases.html
- https://news.ontario.ca/mgs/en/2017/12/strengthening-protection-for-ontario-consumers-act.html
