By Pepper Parr
July 15th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
“The political process in this matter has ended” said Mayor Meed Ward in a statement yesterday. “…we now ask staff and the organizations to continue their conversation towards a solution.”
Mayor Meed Ward: “We acknowledge that the past few weeks have included difficult conversations …”
The politics that surround the mess over the allocation of swimming pool time and the process the city chose to use should not be over for the two swimming clubs, GHAC – Golden Horseshoe Aquatic Club and BAD Burlington Aquatic Deveilrays – it was politics that kept the feet of the politicians to the flames.
GHAC wants in on the Burlington market and they will do as much as they can to make that happen. BAD just wants to be able to continue the programs it has offered for decades.
In the statement released by the Mayor also said:
“On behalf of all of Council, I want to share the following update regarding aquatics.
“We acknowledge that the past few weeks have included difficult conversations within the community and among our swimming organizations. While the perspectives have varied, what remains clear is a shared dedication to youth sport and to ensuring continued access to high-quality competitive swim programming in Burlington.
“Council has directed staff to work with both organizations to explore a resolution of the issue, and appreciates their willingness to have this conversation.
“The political process in this matter has ended, we now ask staff and the organizations to continue their conversation towards a solution.”
The Gazette observed that CAO Hassaan Basit was not at Council during two sessions; the city communications department advised that he was on earned vacation but did take part in some of the CLOSED sessions.
So Council should have a clear picture as to who did what, when and why and where the mistakes were made. And mistakes were made.
The issue was a program for swimmers – council was elected to ensure that they have the pool time needed.
The Council meeting on Tuesday was the last until September (Except for one meeting in August to attend to a development matter).
There is no opportunity for the public to be aware of what is taking place.
We doubt that Kimberly Calderbank will make any statements. The city cannot impose a gag order on anyone.
The disappointing point in all this is how little the individual members of Council chose to say. The sense we have is that they decided not to stand up for and represent the people who elected them
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Bruce, Lynn, Blair
You three are all insufferable. Not just on this topic, but in general. You all equally take all the oxygen in this chat forum.
Lynn you also seem to have just as much of a last word problem.
Please give it a rest?
Editor’s note: This comment, justified as it is, has the potential to be become flame throwing that will last for months. Not on this site – so know now that we will not publish responses to this comment and will watch carefully how the four of you choose to communicate with each other. Try semaphore or smoke signals please
So funny, indeed. Whooosh! I guess we should have used “/s” – also common in the modern texting world, but I always finding it better to not have to point it out by doing so. It is much more fun when it turns out like this.
(your barking and LOLs and need for last word are quite familiar …)
Oh, appreciate you opening up Bruce but I’m really not that kinda guy.
Aww, lots of love to you too, Mr. Leigh.
IMO, another example of our mayor and council showing no accountability whatsoever to the residents and constituents for whom they work. They could have and should have done and said much more. It seems to me that picking and choosing when the mayor/council can or cannot involve themselves in city matters depends very much on whether the particular matter is being met with praise or criticism by the public.
The “perspectives have varied” line is straight out of the mayor’s usual playbook when responding to criticism: the implication being that there’s different “perspectives”/those doing the criticizing are “misinformed” etc. Actually, facts are facts. I appreciated Councillor Kearns’ calling out this language back during the strong mayor powers criticism. Speaking of SMP, that criticism isn’t going away, and is in fact ramping up. I guess our own strong mayor got to choose Basit’s replacement. And yet again, the one chosen is another from the usual very small circle of known entities … such a little silo we have here.
I hope Mr. Benson doesn’t sit through council meetings looking at his cellphone rather than looking at and paying attention to delegates, which I witnessed Basit doing often. I think it’s very poor that Basit quit so soon after starting his job, and that he now quits, and then goes on vacation, right when this major debacle by his staff occurred. Many a senior executive has cancelled vacations when something blows up which needs his/her attention.
We go through City Managers –oops, CAOs — more frequently than any other municipality in Ontario it seems (well, since the 2018 election …).
Judging by how well tryouts are going we don’t just need new pool allocation – we need a new club. GOlden Oakville Devilrays (GOOD) has a nice ring to it!
If this is indeed the status of the ‘swim issue’ – a direction to staff, coming out of Council’s closed discussions, to meet with the two proponents and find a resolution – then it is a total failure of appropriate political oversight and govenance.
Meed Ward has made much of her current emotional campaign for “elected respect”. However, as many have already noted, respect must be earned. While there are members of this Council who have periodically received my respect for their actions and positions, none have done so consistently. It has been a frustrating seven years for Burlington I think. So much was promised, so little was delivered.