By Gazette Staff
July 2nd, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
BAD (Burlington Aquatic Devilrays) has discovered that moving swimmers to another club is a really bad idea. BAD Offers More Affordable Programming Across the Board BAD’s fees are significantly lower than Golden Horsehow Aquatics Club) ’s for comparable training groups.
Look at the numbers:
Example: BAD’s “Competitive 3” group is $690 per season, while GHAC’s comparable group is $1,780—over 2.5x more expensive.
More Value for Money at BAD
Burlington-based club with 79% local swimmers
BAD swimmers receive more weekly hours of training than GHAC counterparts.
In several examples, BAD offers double the training time at less than half the price.
BAD Supports a Larger Base of Burlington Youth BAD is a community-first, Burlington-based club with 79% local swimmers, compared to GHAC’s 28%.
Lower fees allow for greater access and equity in competitive sport participation.
GHAC’s Higher Fees Could Limit Access •GHAC’s fee structure suggests a move toward exclusive, elite programming with higher barriers to entry.
This shift could displace or exclude current BAD families and swimmers from continuing the sport.
Question of Equity in Municipal Decision-Making •If the City of Burlington supports GHAC despite its high prices and low local representation, it raises concerns about the equity and fairness of the decision.
Choosing GHAC may effectively privatize access to aquatic sport for Burlington youth.
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Full disclosure I have no experience with either BAD or GHAC. I have though had the opportunity to review the City RFP. The approach taken by the City is not a good news story for Burlington residents. I suggest you obtain a copy and draw your own conclusions.
Editor’s note: You get a Tim Horton’s cookie for getting through all 59 pages of the document. An RFP was the wrong route to go. It will be interesting to see how the city will wiggle its way out of this one. They will go into closed session and decide what to do and never tell the public because that is confidential. My hope is the BAD sues – that gets people into a court room where they are sworn and have to do the truth thing.
Is there an upside – best readership of the year – highest ever – except for the closing of Emmas – 17,000 that day.
The irony of this photo and caption is striking — most of the swimmers pictured left BAD long ago due to concerns over coaching quality and lack of meaningful development. Today, many of them train with high-performance clubs in Milton, Hamilton, and Etobicoke. To use their past success to shame the City is not only misleading — it’s deeply disrespectful to the families who made those hard choices in pursuit of better coaching.
The facts speak for themselves: BAD’s Burlington residency sits at 79%, below the 85% threshold required in the City’s RFP. Meanwhile, coaching depth has eroded, with many sessions led by unqualified teens and a coach-to-athlete ratio sometimes exceeding 1:40. Families have been voting with their feet for months. GHAC didn’t “poach” anyone — Burlington swimmers and parents actively sought better training environments.
Important context for the public:
BAD continues to present itself as an affordable, high-performance swim club — but refuses to publicly share training fees or schedules, unlike clubs such as GHAC or OAK that operate transparently.
The image used in this article appears to feature the “Senior 3” group from a past season — a developmental-level group for swimmers 13+, roughly equivalent to GHAC’s Senior Development level. Using this to represent the program’s competitiveness is misleading.
There are several points missing from the public narrative:
BAD’s schedule lists practices until 7:30 AM, but swimmers and coaches consistently leave at 7:00 AM to accommodate school schedules, leaving 30 minutes of public pool time unused each morning — an inefficient and wasteful use of taxpayer-funded facilities. Morning 2 hour sessions exist only on paper and are routinely cut short.
Training groups are frequently run by teenage assistant coaches, with limited certified coaching support. BAD reportedly has only 2 actively employed competitive coaches for a membership of ~400 swimmers — an unsustainable and concerning ratio by any standard.
For years, BAD benefited from exclusive access to Burlington’s public pools at reduced rental rates, while GHAC and other clubs were forced to rely on private pool rentals at significantly higher cost. The “affordability” advantage was rooted in monopoly, not program quality.
GHAC, by contrast, operates across several municipalities with publicly available program fees, structured development pathways, and certified coaching. They now offer Burlington swimmers access to both short-course and long-course training — something BAD has never consistently provided.
GHAC’s fees are fully in line with other high-performance clubs such as OAK and ESWIM and reflect the higher coaching quality, technical delivery, and long-term development outcomes. What families get in return is not just more time in the pool — but smarter, more productive, and technically sound training sessions.
It’s time to stop the misinformation and fear-driven rhetoric. Families deserve choice, facts, and transparency — not guilt or manipulation.
Let’s also clarify what the RFP actually covers: it applies specifically to Angela Coughlan and Centennial pools — both maintained at competitive training temperatures. These facilities were never intended to be monopolized by entry-level recreational programs. If BAD wishes to focus on developmental or recreational services, warmer pools like Tansley Woods remain appropriate options, or they may explore private pool rentals, just as GHAC did for years.
Ultimately, this comes down to accountability and public benefit. These city pools are a limited and valuable resource. They should support programs that offer professional coaching, development pathways, and athlete safety — not inflated numbers, non-transparent leadership, or diluted technical delivery.
GHAC meets that bar — and more. Families are ready for an open, ethical, and high-performing swim system. Burlington deserves nothing less.
Editor’s note: This reads like someone who has some form of attachment to the GHAC people which is perfectly alright – but it should be declared. We stand to be corrected.
Caleb I am a commercial guy with a technical background with no detailed knowledge of the two swim clubs or their programs. I do though believe strongly on this matter in supporting a local organization and in ethics, not a process that has been designed to poaching from one organization to another to succeed. In this case a long term community organization. I call foul.
Your commentary leaves readers to assume that you have quite the credentials on the subject matter, perhaps a subject matter expert. Tell us what your qualifications and do you have personal involvement?
Several points worth exploring here, in this story that lacks full perspective:
If BAD offers more training time, perhaps this has been supported by exclusive rights to all Burlington competitive pool time in Burlington for the past 5 years.
I also ask myself- if the numbers are accurate and 28% of GHAC (and presumably similar numbers in OAK) are from Burlington, why is that?
I know that personally, BAD did not return our inquiries and have waitlisted many more families, leaving us with no option but to leave our city boundaries. So how is it equitable that that many Burlington families have had to commute, carpool, take GO Buses and whatever else it takes, just to offer OUR children competitive swim programming? Why are we excluded from access to our own city pools?
I can personally attest to the excellent training and support offered by GHAC. They went out of their way to welcome us when our child finished all of the Swim Lessons offered by COB, completed lifeguard courses and was unable to access BAD to further their skillset. Our children have been taking swim lessons in Burlington from the age of 4 months, yet were left without access to higher level programming when they needed it.
GHAC offers so many opportunities for team-building and extending skills. My child supports younger swimmers and volunteers as a time keeper. We even attended a Florida Training camp this spring. They also have record-setting athletes and award-winning coaches. Many of their swimmers go on to coach or volunteer for GHAC. It truly is a family.
I’m sure BAD families feel the same about their club. I just wish they were accurate when talking about how they “service Burlington exclusively”- because they don’t, really. So many families have been “making it work” for 5 years, by LEAVING COB and taking our business elsewhere.
I am disappointed that the Burlington Gazette reporting is so one-sided.
Perhaps you should interview long-time GHAC families and discover the other side of the story. We are just excited to finally be back in Burlington pools, where we live and ALSO pay our taxes.
These stories make it sound like a Hamilton club is taking over Burlington pools, when really, more Burlington families are finally getting equitable opportunities to access our community resources. In fact, I would imagine that they may even lose a few Hamilton swimmers who don’t want to commute to Burlington (I don’t blame them).
If GHAC is actually more expensive (these numbers are ambiguous at best and don’t compare apples to apples), now imagine the EXTRA travel costs so many of us have incurred over the years!
Burlington Gazette, please do better by reporting both sides of the story. I look forward to hearing our side; the many BURLINGTON families who have been left out and ignored in the media- and by our “own” club.
Editor’s note: You are doing a fine job of getting your story out.