TOWN OF TWO HILLS
Minutes of the Regular Meeting of Council for the Town of Two Hills
held February 25, 2008 7:00 p.m. in the Two Hills Town Council
Chambers
CALL TO ORDER: Mayor M. Kussmann called the meeting to order at 7:00 P.M.
PRESENT: Mayor M. Kussmann, Deputy Mayor M. D. Pawliuk, Councillor
S. Rajoo, Councillor G. Saskiw, Councillor E. Sorochan, Interim Chief Administrative Officer (C.A.O.) Gary N. Popowich, Recording Secretary B. Lyzaniuk, press, and public
DELEGATION Friends of Ed Stelmach - Ron Rudkowsky & Supporters
(7:25 - 7:45 P.M.)
Ron Rudkowsky informed Council that the Friends of Ed Stelmach Committee agree to donate $1,000 from their Premier's Dinner Fund Raiser towards the improvement of the Two Hills Centennial Hall and informed Council that there is Provincial Funding available for the upgrading of the Two Hills Centennial Hall. This Provincial Funding is a matching Grant i.e. 50/50 to a maximum of $100,000 from the Province.
Council suggested organizing a special meeting including other group
representatives to discuss plans for the purpose of forming a Community Fund Raising Committee.
Mayor M. Kussman thanked Ron Rudkowsky and supporters of the
Friends of Ed Stelmach for their presentation.
Unsurprisingly this meeting has completely disappeared from the posted records. http://www.thcounty.ab.ca/municipal/twohills/twohills-website.nsf/AllDoc/24A15E47EC1FA59587257410006FB50A?OpenDocument
Does anyone else find it incredible that in a so-called democratic society, official records can just disappear after they have been accessed by someone that isn't supposed to see them? An entire Council meeting!
Friday, February 6, 2009
Ticket Scalping, Government Sanctioned (gougng the public and ripping off artists) with the blessing of Alberta government.
I watched today's mianstream media coverage of ticket resellers on with interest, because this issue came to light in Alberta last fall as a result of the Stelmach government passing Bill 18, the Film and Video Classification Act, replacing the existing Amusements Act.
The existing act included a clause stating:
“No person shall sell, barter or exchange a ticket of admission to a
place of amusement for a price or consideration greater than that
paid or given for it to the owner of the place to which it authorizes admission.”
The maximum penalty at the time was $200.00
This section of the old Act provided expedient enforcement against scalpers,if implemented, however was never used against internet entertainment ticket resellers.
In spite of vehement arguments and appeals against removing this clause, the majority Tory government ignored all protests and deliberately and knowingly eliminated any reference to reselling tickets. They also refused to include any intervening legislation or regulation that would allow any recommendation or actual legislation to deal with the issue separately.
Instead, the majority members of government used the false argument that the issue could be adequately dealt with under consumer protection legislation, namely the Fair Trading Act, which relies upon the criminal code and enforcement thereof, likely on a single incident-by-incident basis, for any type of protection – not just for consumers, but for the artists, the venue operators and the local people employed in the backstage of the concert and other large entertainment production business.
When the public goes to the Ticketmaster internet site,within of tickets going on sale,there are few tickets or no tickets left.
Hopeful purchasers are automatically redirected to TicketsNow for tickets available at massively inflated prices. The inflated prices result in huge profits to the resellers as they do nothing more than internet transactions.
In Alberta, TicketsNow is the big ticket reseller, not just for concerts, but now also for provincial art performances such as ballet and symphony performances.
The kicker – TicketsNow, a Chicago-based company is owned by Ticketmaster!
How this government sanctioning and facilitating of consumer, artist and backstage workers worked, technically, is that Bill 18 had a section that repealed the existing Amusements Act in its entirety. Any and all motions made to amend the legislation in order to protect consumers was voted down by the majority government members.
If you would like to see just how this unfolded, I suggest that you read the transcripts for the meetings of The Standing Committee on Community Services, 27th Legislature, 1st Session (2008) in their entirety, paying particular attention to the contributions of:
Philip Massolin Committee Research Co-ordinator and
Katherine Huising and Paul Pearson of the applicable Ministry of Culture and Community Spirit.
It is also necessary to read the constributions of Laurie Blakeman, of the Official Opposition, who fully understood the issues and very capably presented and explained them as well as offered alternatives that would protect Albertans that are currently ripped off by ticket resellers.
All of the Hansard records that I refer to are found at:
http://www.assembly.ab.ca/net/index.aspx?p=cs§ion=doc&fid=47
For a quicker examination, see the records for the presentations of Huising and Pearson on July 28th, the record for September 25th and for the piece de la resistance, Wednesday October 15th – only after reading September 25th.
At least in ‘banana republics’ their crooked governments admit what they are. They don’t pretend to be something that they clearly aren’t.
It would be interesting to follow the money. In most corrupt regimes, that’s where the answers are.
The existing act included a clause stating:
“No person shall sell, barter or exchange a ticket of admission to a
place of amusement for a price or consideration greater than that
paid or given for it to the owner of the place to which it authorizes admission.”
The maximum penalty at the time was $200.00
This section of the old Act provided expedient enforcement against scalpers,if implemented, however was never used against internet entertainment ticket resellers.
In spite of vehement arguments and appeals against removing this clause, the majority Tory government ignored all protests and deliberately and knowingly eliminated any reference to reselling tickets. They also refused to include any intervening legislation or regulation that would allow any recommendation or actual legislation to deal with the issue separately.
Instead, the majority members of government used the false argument that the issue could be adequately dealt with under consumer protection legislation, namely the Fair Trading Act, which relies upon the criminal code and enforcement thereof, likely on a single incident-by-incident basis, for any type of protection – not just for consumers, but for the artists, the venue operators and the local people employed in the backstage of the concert and other large entertainment production business.
When the public goes to the Ticketmaster internet site,within of tickets going on sale,there are few tickets or no tickets left.
Hopeful purchasers are automatically redirected to TicketsNow for tickets available at massively inflated prices. The inflated prices result in huge profits to the resellers as they do nothing more than internet transactions.
In Alberta, TicketsNow is the big ticket reseller, not just for concerts, but now also for provincial art performances such as ballet and symphony performances.
The kicker – TicketsNow, a Chicago-based company is owned by Ticketmaster!
How this government sanctioning and facilitating of consumer, artist and backstage workers worked, technically, is that Bill 18 had a section that repealed the existing Amusements Act in its entirety. Any and all motions made to amend the legislation in order to protect consumers was voted down by the majority government members.
If you would like to see just how this unfolded, I suggest that you read the transcripts for the meetings of The Standing Committee on Community Services, 27th Legislature, 1st Session (2008) in their entirety, paying particular attention to the contributions of:
Philip Massolin Committee Research Co-ordinator and
Katherine Huising and Paul Pearson of the applicable Ministry of Culture and Community Spirit.
It is also necessary to read the constributions of Laurie Blakeman, of the Official Opposition, who fully understood the issues and very capably presented and explained them as well as offered alternatives that would protect Albertans that are currently ripped off by ticket resellers.
All of the Hansard records that I refer to are found at:
http://www.assembly.ab.ca/net/index.aspx?p=cs§ion=doc&fid=47
For a quicker examination, see the records for the presentations of Huising and Pearson on July 28th, the record for September 25th and for the piece de la resistance, Wednesday October 15th – only after reading September 25th.
At least in ‘banana republics’ their crooked governments admit what they are. They don’t pretend to be something that they clearly aren’t.
It would be interesting to follow the money. In most corrupt regimes, that’s where the answers are.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)