By Pepper Parr
July 7th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
After four full hours in a Closed Session of Council they rose and reported the following:
The motion is to direct the commissioner of legal and legislative services and city solicitor or his designate to proceed in accordance with instructions as directed by committee regarding confidential legal report on potential litigation for aquatics procurement and report back to council.
Councillor Lisa Kearns chaired the Standing Committee meeting.
Can I please have a member move the motion?
I will look for comments, and then I’ll call the vote on the motion. The only comment made came from Councillor Sharman who said: ” We had a tremendous group of community members in the room. We had family members and representatives from both clubs.
The Council Chamber was close to full with swimmers and their parents.
“It is clear to me that we have a huge emotional outcry from members of the community with respect to something that’s so dear and important to them that they think it was necessary for this council to update itself, obtain information from the delegates, as well as from staff. There is an opportunity for us to learn more about it. I don’t really want to say more about it than that, but I’m pleased that we have asked staff to report back to us. .
Chair Kearns: “I’m pleased that we had the opportunity to hear from delegates and to see everyone’s perspective earlier today; it was a good opening, although the report was absolutely in confidential, as you know, this motion here doesn’t really say a whole lot either. That is meant to be kept in confidential, but it was a good opportunity to continue the dialogue with the community and hopefully get to the best possible outcome. I will now call the vote. All those in favor; the vote carried unanimously.
And that was it. What is not yet clear is, when staff will appear before Council and answer questions.
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My final thoughts on the “swim club affair” pending whatever direction the City chooses to take:
1. The RFP process is used in no other Burlington club sport to allocate resources – only swimming.
2. Prior to 2020, a rental process was used and seemed to work well.
3. In 2020 the City decided to use an RFP to allocate pool time in City facilities – but not all facilities.
4. The use of an RFP was an “innovation” of the Meed Ward administration; she and they ‘own’ this one entirely
5. The RFP was late in being released and there was a time pressure that should not have existed.
6. As a past public servant (and a former responsible procurement executive), I know that any RFP that only has two respondents, one of which is the incumbent (and a 40 year service provider) and the incumbent is disqualified (technicality or not) without the sealed bid being opened raises automatic and very large red flags. These warnings would normally go right up to all senior executive levels and should have caused multiple briefings and very serious discussion of the path forward. The award of the contract under these conditions should have been deferred. The City should have kept all its options open.
7. Political interference in the procurement process is prohibited by a City by-law. However, this “legal” restriction does not exclude political examination and review of any associated governance or public equity issues.
8. Every Councillor, with one exception, asked pertinent and multiple questions of the delegates at the Committee of the Whole meeting of July 7th. The one exception was Rory Nisan, the Councillor for Ward 3. He remained totally silent throughout.
I listened to all the delegations regarding this issue and I came away wondering why BAD refused to meet with GHAC, perhaps to discuss sharing the pool time, prior to submitting their request for pool time. Now it seems they are prepared to do this.
There seems to be some issues with the awarding of the pool time to GHAC. Was it done properly well that depends which swim club your people belong to?
However the delegation by GHAC was very compelling. They indicated that when BAD was given the pool time for the last 5 years they didn’t go and complain to everyone that this was not fair. They made alternate arrangements for their swimmers.
How this will end will be very interesting. If GHAC decides to share pool time with BAD it will be out of the goodness of their heart.
Editor’s note: Is there a signed contract? Does GHAC not have to prove that 85% of their membership lives in Burlington. The one thing you are right about is “litigation” – the only ones who win that game are the lawyers.
I see litigation in the future.
Let’s not forget that GHAC has a signed contract from the City.
The council chambers was more than close to full, it was overflowing into the hallway, all seats taken and all standing room also taken. It is clear that the city and council need to resolve this matter and it was also made clear today by delegates that every day they dawdle and discuss rather than make a decision and act, they do more harm to the swimmers.
I thought the delegations by Kimberley Calderbank and Katie Lebel of BAD were particularly good and I hope you publish them here if you can. Otherwise, I encourage people to look for the video and watch it when it’s posted. They both answered when asked that their recommendation is to revert back to rental agreements rather than using the RFP process for sports teams. They also reiterated that this is not an “us vs them” issue and that they want to believe that the city can come to a solution to benefit everyone, rather than one which destroys BAD. After all, their swimmers cannot move with their BAD organization to another city — they only exist in Burlington, unlike GHAC who has teams in numerous Hamilton-area municipalities.