Ontarians may soon be able to get tickets to that must-see concert or sports event thanks to new legislation passed at Queen’s Park.

The province on Wednesday banned the use or sale of ticket bots — computer software that quickly scoops up huge numbers of tickets online — and also put a ceiling on what can be charged for resale.

MPPs from the Liberals voted in favour of the bill, while the Progressive Conservatives and the New Democrats opposed it.

“This really puts fans first,” said Attorney General Yasir Naqvi.

“There’s no one magic bullet to dealing with the issue,” said Naqvi.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said the legislation — the Liberals’ third attempt at tackling the issue — does not go far enough.

“They’ve had three kicks at the can and they’re still not addressing the jacking up of prices for families,” said Horwath.

“The bottom line is this is not really consumer protection. It’s not going as far as should,” she said.

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Progressive Conservative MPP Vic Fedeli (Nipissing) predicted the law would do little to combat bots.

“There was good legislation at the beginning that had full disclosure of the amount of tickets that were available and at the last second the government themselves put an amendment that took that out,” said Fedeli.

That was a reference to a provision that would have forced ticket sellers to publicize how many tickets would be on sale for the concert, show or sporting event, as well as the capacity of the venue.

Naqvi said that was changed to avoid “unintended consequences” in smaller communities.

“Because that number is not a static number — of general on-sale (tickets). Because no artist likes to perform in an empty venue, that number fluctuates,” he said.

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“By ensuring that we provided that number, it would have significantly impacted artists to go into smaller markets because they don’t want to perform in those type of circumstances.”

Critics have suggested the measures are largely symbolic because offshore ticket bot operators are difficult to track down and prosecute.

The law empowers ticket operators to sue bot companies.

It also caps resale prices at no more than 50 per cent above the original price and forces online sellers to disclose all surcharges up front.

The issue erupted last year after the farewell Tragically Hip concert in their hometown of Kingston sold out within minutes.

That forced fans to pay exorbitant resale prices on online sites.

StubHub, a popular online site for people to resell their tickets, said it approves of the legislation, but not limiting resale prices.

“This legislation will be known more for its unintended consequences than its protection of fans like you,” StubHub’s North American general manager Jeff Poirier said in an open letter to the public.

“The issues impacting ticket access are broader than just bots. It has been reported that large percentages of tickets never actually go on sale to the general public, but instead are reserved for pre-sales and industry insiders,” wrote Poirier.

“The original legislation required ticket sellers to disclose how many tickets were actually being made available for sale, a simple concept that would provide you better insight into the actual availability of tickets,” he wrote.

“This is the very issue the proposed legislation was trying to solve. Yet, the government chose to remove this critical provision from the legislation, citing pressure from the live entertainment industry as a prevailing reason over establishing transparency for Ontario fans like you.”