By Gazette Staff
June 30th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
The City is aware of recent media stories and public comments about the outcome of our competitive bid process for youth aquatics services. There has been some confusion and misinformation shared, and now that the contract is finalized, we can provide more clarity.
Since 2020, the City has allocated pool time for competitive swim programs through a formal procurement process. This approach follows our procurement by-law and the Municipal Act. It helps ensure we get the best value for residents and that all qualified swim clubs have an equal opportunity to apply.
Procurement processes are used by the City to purchase a wide range of services and supplies – from playground equipment to transit vehicles to aquatics programming. The process is designed to be fair, competitive, and accountable to the public. Rules are in place to make sure everyone is treated equally, including restrictions on political involvement, lobbying, and sharing bid details while the process is underway.
Now that the process is complete, we can confirm submissions from the Burlington Aquatic Devilrays (BAD) and Golden Horseshoe Aquatic Club (GHAC) were received for the 2025 – 2030 youth competitive aquatics contract. Both organizations also submitted bids for the 2020 – 2025 contract, with the same rules in place, including the submission of a certificate of incorporation as a Non-Profit or Not-for-Profit organization. In 2020, the contract was awarded to BAD. This year, the fact that BAD was the current provider did not play a role in the evaluation of new proposals.
As part of the evaluation criteria, the RFP required all applicants to demonstrate that at least 85% of their registrants live in Burlington. This is to make sure that Burlington residents benefit directly from the pool time the City provides. GHAC met all the requirements of the proposal, including this residency threshold, and has been awarded the contract.
As BAD has shared publicly, their bid was disqualified because it was missing some of the required information – in particular, a certificate of incorporation as a Non-Profit or Not-for-Profit organization. Under the bid process rules, City staff are not allowed to overlook missing mandatory requirements or allow submission after the RFP closing date. This protects the fairness of the process.
We understand this outcome is disappointing for BAD and its members. BAD submitted a formal request for review, and that process confirmed the decision was made according to our policies and procedures.
We value the role that all local swim clubs play in our community and will continue working with BAD to explore options for accessing pool time through our regular allocation process.
Our focus remains on making sure Burlington residents have access to high-quality programs and fair use of City facilities. We appreciate everyone’s contributions to building a strong aquatics community here in Burlington.
Since it was stipulated that one must demonstrate that 85% of the clubs ‘ members must be from Burlington and my assumption is that GHACs membership is not they have been given 90 days to comply? I notice they have already been actively recruiting BAD members which is against the code of conduct of Swim Ontario.
A cynic may comment in this egregious circumstance that the City’s response suggests “the bull has diarrhea”, but it is clearly “not the bull”…..
In any formal procurement process that I have been involved in, and that is many there is a bid review process after bid closing that normally includes Q&A both commercial and technical.
If in fact there is missing documentation whether it is properly identified or not it would be completely unreasonable to immediately disqualify a bidder without first asking them to supply it.
Was that in fact done. Many procurement processes also allow for “single source” wards. I am not familiar with these swim clubs or the City of Burlington procurement procedures. It would not be unreasonable or unethical to award such a contract to an entirely local deserving organization.
I smell a rat. Maybe a few.
Yes, maybe a few. It is my understanding that the Golden Horseshoe Aquatic Club (GHAC) has an affiliation with the McMaster Swim Program, shares facilities and coaching and have been given 90 days (the amount of time that the City has to withdraw from the contract) to meet the 85% local swimmer requirement. The only way for them to do this is for BAD swimmers to join GHAC and the latter has begun an active recruitment program to ‘ease the transition” of BAD swimmers to GHAC. It would mean the destruction of BAD. This whole thing is wrong on multiple levels.
If the Hamilton group did not meet the 85% requirement with their offer why are they not disqualified. Does anyone know how one can obtain a copy of the RFP?
Definitely smell a few rats — and as more information comes out, so do more rats.
And as per Blair’s reply, it seems like a very fat rat is the fact that the Hamilton club is now trying to get BAD swimmers to prop up their own numbers by September — something they could not have done had BAD not been denied the swim time. Why are they allowed this extra time to do EXACTLY THIS? This stinks to high heaven. I’m glad BAD has a lawyer on board.
Burlington city hall comes across looking really BAD here imo. Will they be circling the wagons and doubling down as so often is the case when criticized? This will be on the council agenda July 7. Let’s see how the delegates from BAD are treated. And of course: the agenda already shows they’ll be in closed session on this matter as well. Yes, it’s a legal matter. It’s also a convenient excuse for the usual non-transparency.
This is outrageous! The event itself illustrates how unlikely it is that “Burlington residents have access to high-quality programs and fair use of City facilities”. And the apparently unyielding demand by City staff that the Swimming Club present documentation that CANNOT POSSIBLY BE PROVIDED – and they ought to know that – is outrageous. Think of all the other not-for-profits who use City facilities – will they be equally unable to qualify?