Despite thousands of price-gouging complaints in the GTA following an emergency order by the Ford Government and hundreds forwarded to local law enforcement, there have been no charges laid according to available data.
In March, the Ford Government introduced a new price-gouging emergency order, aimed at businesses and private sellers jacking up prices during the pandemic.
"A message to anyone who price-gouges, 'we're coming after you, we're going to come after you hard,'" Ford said, sparked by grocer Pusateri's listing Lysol wipes around $30 for a normal-sized container. "They're done, they're going to be gone, nothing gets me more furious than someone taking advantage."
Since then, over 28,000 price-gouging complaints were filed - mostly in the first few months after the order was issued - and of those 1,650 notifications were sent by the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services to various businesses advising them to make sure their prices were in compliance.
But 900 others considered the most egregious were forwarded to various law enforcement agencies to investigate, with the biggest chunk going to Toronto Police at 570 by the end of July.
"We did these checks in partnership with the City of Toronto. No charges were laid," TPS said in a statement.
Other cases forwarded to GTA forces included Peel Regional Police with 97, but all businesses in those cases were found to be in compliance.
York Regional Police were forwarded around 90 complaints, with many of them being multiple calls to the same business or location. Like incidents in other regions, some were resolved at the scene with education or a warning, while others were found to have their prices within reason. Other calls where there does appear to be an offence are still under investigation, a spokesperson said.
Halton Regional Police Service received two complaints and in the first case, prices were deemed to be fine, while in the second, a location had received several complaints with a warning letter issued by the ministry, but nothing further.
Durham Regional Police Service did not have data available at the time of publication.
It isn't clear what the breakdown is of the remaining roughly 150 complaints, as the OPP said it did not have any statistics related to price-gouging, while Hamilton had five complaints reported, with the force saying there was no evidence to lay charges, (Ottawa Police suggested filing an FOI report.)
Penalties range from $750 to $100,000 fines and a possible year in jail for individuals, escalating to 500,000 and jail for company directors and/or officers, as well as the maximum $10 million for corporations.