By Pepper Parr
August 1st, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
City Hall announced minutes ago that a solution for competitive youth swimming has been reached between the City, the Golden Horseshoe Aquatic Club (GHAC) and the Burlington Aquatic Devilrays (BAD).
With the best interests of all youth swimmers and their families in mind, the City worked closely with both GHAC and BAD to determine each club’s pool needs. Both clubs recognized and agreed to streamline their contemplated offerings and seek programming in private pool facilities to ensure that both organizations can offer competitive youth swimming options for residents of Burlington within the number of hours in City pools that have been set aside for that purpose.
The City recognizes the collaborative efforts of GHAC, the successful bidder in the RFP process, and BAD in reaching agreements with the City that balance their operational needs with the recognition that both clubs will provide valuable programming in City pools now and in the years to come.
Youth swimming plays a vital role in fostering healthy, active lifestyles and building strong community connections. Through swimming partners like GHAC and BAD, young people develop physical fitness, confidence, and discipline – skills that benefit them both in and out of the water. These programs also create inclusive spaces where youth can socialize, learn teamwork, and grow in a supportive environment. These are qualities that are important to the future of the City, and we are pleased to support them with partners like GHAC and BAD.
We are into a long weekend, most of the players in this game will be out of the city. We will do what we can to get some comment.
Discover more from Burlington Gazette - Local News, Politics, Community
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The real issue is the core competency of city staff and likely inappropriate and or lacking administrative processes with accountability and checks and balances.
A construction RFP with inappropriate scorecard for a pool rental agreement at prescribed rates and hours is laughable. We are not receiving value for our tax dollars. I cannot begin to imagine staff are handling other files involving real maintenance and capital spending.
Like our seemingly useless politicians that we have at all levels in Canada let’s make an announcement late Friday ahead of a long weekend.
When City council gets involved in blatant political interference ,all goes quiet
This has to be a joke, but unfortunately it is not. I received this email at 8:53 PM today ( Friday) at the beginning of a long weekend ( no one at city hall on Monday).
I have to wonder how long it took to come up with a statement that says absolutely nothing.
As a resident of Burlington, I would like to know how my taxpayer dollars are being spent. I have the following questions:
– what private pools will be used by both clubs?
– where are these pools located?
– who will be paying for the use of the private pools?
This fiasco falls directly to Parks and Recreation. BAD made this a political issue which it never was. Let’s not forget that BAD refused to meet with GHAC prior to submitting requests for pool time, and then came crying foul when they lost their pool time.
It is time for the mayor and our councillors to provide this information if city staff is not prepared to do so.