By Gazette Staff
October 26th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
A Burlington taxpayer who has previously written about the pool allocation decision and its impact on Burlington families and the broader sports community has some words for City Council
In material sent to a majority of the members of Council and to the city clerk – the resident said the following:
“I will not restate all the points that have been made — those details and concerns would appropriately surface through the proposed review/audit outlined in the motion.
BAD swimmers training at the Nelson pool.
“The justification for such a review begins with one unfair and misguided decision that has had serious and far-reaching consequences.
“When the RFP — a commercial process inappropriate for a community-based, not-for-profit swim club with a 40+ year legacy — was issued, swimming was the only sport subjected to that process. The RFP required proof that the not-for-profit was in good standing. When the club was notified of this, it immediately consulted the appropriate governing bodies and obtained confirmation and documentation demonstrating that it was, in fact, in good standing.
“GHAC faced the same issue but received clarification through a response to the Adult RFP. BAD, having applied only under the Youth RFP, did not receive that same clarification and was effectively ignored. As a result, their submission was never reviewed — meaning the relative merits of each club and the consequences of the decision were never properly considered.
“That single procedural failure — recognized by many as unfair — has led to the current situation and its unintended impacts on our community.
“This matter warrants a fair review. The motion is fully justified and deserves your support. It is an issue of growing concern for many Burlington residents, especially young families with children in sports.
“I strongly urge the Committee to do the right thing and support this motion.”
Will Council finally do something – they have gone mute on this since the issue first became public – and have sat on their hands as well. Mayor Meed Ward took the position that a procurement matter was something she was not allowed to talk about. On that, she is correct. The issue for the BAD swimming club is that the decision should not have been made in a procurement setting – it should have been managed as something parks and recreation does all the time.
Did she get it wrong and doesn’t know how to walk back her decision?
The Mayor seemed to be afraid to admit that the city had made a mistake.
Having lost control of the narrative, the Mayor now faces a situation where a member of Council has put a Motion on the table that asks Council to send the matter to the Audit Committee for a thorough review.
Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle.
It will take at least four of the seven members of Council to recommend the action and send it to the audit committee.
At this point there is no certainty that Council will vote to recommend that the issue be sent to the audit committee.
If the Council decides not to recommend that the matter be sent to the audit people, there is some concern that the BAD people will be able to operate in 2026.
A 40-year legacy might leave the scene as the gurgling sound of water in a swimming pool going down the drain.
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The Audit Committee will hold in Council Chambers a special meeting on November 26th at 1:00 pm to discuss:-
Item 8.5 Motion memorandum regarding audit of space allocation for competitive swimming programs (COW-15-25) that was referred from the November 3 Committee of the Whole meeting.
I suggest you all attend to hear the discussion but in particular the positions taken by Committee members, Mayor Meed Ward and Councilor Sharman.
If you wish you can also delegate to the Committee.
Editor’s note: This assumes that the recommendation sent to Council get approved at the November 18th meeting.
Would people stop. It was the change in the RFO in 2925 that lead to an unfair ruling. You folks are debating without facts. There is no sour grapes by the BAD team. It just was not treated fairly and the other team was given advantage. It will find out in the Audit. A 49 year legacy should not take this type of unfairness. It’s not about winners or losers, winners or whiners, it’s about technical errors and advantage that didn’t allow for BADs proposal to even be considered.
The councillors need to do what is right and vote in favour of the motion. It will take courage and a strong sense of moral fortitude. Let’s hope they are up to the task.
Bruce it was not opinion. It is fact. There is so much that was not done because of a technical issue where clarification was given by the City under the adult RFP but not shared under the youth RFP, the latter the only one BAD responded to. BAD was advantaged. For instance, because the BAD submission was never opened things like comparing fees, program quality, community involvement etc. was never considered – a normal due diligence exercise. There are also issues around residency requirements and transparency on that matter has not been forthcoming at this point. The writer didn’t get into any of that, nor did the writer point out numerous negative consequences for Burlington families because of the City decision – consequences that should have been considered upfront. The merits of the Motion stand on their own based on what was written and by the writer and by Helen. Counsellor Kearns understands the matter too. There is no need for opinions including yours.
GHAC is a regional club that should never have entered Burlington in the first place. It has a home in Hamilton and operates in other communities. Swim clubs should be about healthy community based programs and activities, not about expansion and revenue generation. Helen makes a great point.
All sports clubs are watching. There are hundreds and hundreds of BAD alumni that live in Burlington given their 40 year history — and thousands of young families with kids in Burlington sports are watching. They want Burlington community facilities to go FIRST to Burlington residents, 40+ year old club legacies protected, and comfort that the rug will not be pulled out from under them. Taxpayers want to be sure their local sports clubs do not face something similar – hence many have felt it is an election issue. I have heard much of the discussion.
In the end, it’s not the clubs that matter — it’s the kids and their families and they deserve to be in a position to know their City will give them priority and sustainability. It can and must be corrected.
BAD should never have had a monopoly on the pool time.
Editor’s note: Burlington Councillors are in place to represents the interests of the people that elected them – the citizens of Burlington; not a swimming club that is based in and operates out of a different city.
Folks, the whole RFP process using an inappropriate construction template, the evaluation metrics, the clarifications then and now is a sham for a pool rental agreement.
Inappropriate and unprofessional. I have 35 years of varied supply management experiences to back that statement up.
I have zero confidence in Council to set this right or frankly on any other matter including especially the egregious planned 5.8% increase in city spending for 2026. In absolute terms rising over 40% in their current term.
Hopefully some qualified, competent, professional, and transparent individuals will run in 2026 and citizens will get out in record numbers and vote.
We can hope, however hope can be the most destructive of emotions.
Unfortunately it’s the procurement team that needs an overhaul, I’d be interested to see their qualifications or even how successful their awards have been on budget adherence. The councillors will be voted out but we will be left with a group of poorly trained and frankly lazy procurement staff members.
Robert I frankly think the issues run deeper than just procurement personnel.
Bruce, I raised this issue with you previously and you never responded, so I will raise it again. Why was it up to the BAD swim club to dispute the RFP process that they were successful in winning in 2020? You have stated in numerous comments that BAD was not complaining when they won in 2020. You are correct, they were not. But, why should they have been? If GHAC and the other club that won were not complaining and raising it as an issue, then why should BAD?
My understanding is that when the city brought in the pool RFP allocation process in 2020, clubs were unhappy and when they complained, prior to the bid being awarded, they were all told that this was something the city was going to do with all sports teams, they were just starting with swimming.
Fast forward four years and they have continued to use an RFP process that is not suited to youth sports with swimming only and have not actually moved this process along to any other sports teams. Is this because they recognize the process is flawed? It this because they tried to speak to the soccer clubs about it a few years back and got major push back? Is this just something they told swim clubs to lessen the complaints and get them on board? Who knows as the city is clearly not willing to be transparent about many of the things surrounding this process.
Also, at least one of the other clubs that lost out on the RFP process in 2020 was GHAC. This is a fact. They stated as much in their delegation before city council in June 2025. They shared that they missed out “on millions” of dollars in revenue due to losing their Burlington pool time. Interesting considering they are listed as a not for profit. They have clearly not gone out of business as they have access to many other pools across the city of Hamilton as that is where most of their swimmers live.
I am certainly in agreement with you around the need for accountability and transparency. I would also like to know why swimming is still the only sport that has to use an RFP process to acquire access to city resources. If it works so well, they need to employ this process to all other sports across the city. Otherwise, they should concede that the process is flawed and move on to something that actually works.
If the motion is not recommended, it will become even more of an election issue than it has already become. And more importantly will signal what members of council stand for when it comes to transparency.