Community has its chance to speak at upcoming meetings

Print

E-mail

Text

RELATED STORIES

• Comparing recreation fees with Toronto's neighbours

Toronto's proposed new Everybody Gets To Play policy for handling recreation fees got its first serious going-over by councillors before going out for a fast round of public consultations.

And based on the early reaction at the Monday, Jan. 14 meeting of the community development and recreation committee, it will be far from the last. Councillors on and off the committee worried that the system would exclude some low-income residents from access to free programs.

"There's always going to be a group to whom the means test won't apply," said Ward 20 (Trinity-Spadina) Councillor Adam Vaughan, who said a plan to expand a means test could leave children in single-parent families where one parent is experiencing financial hardship but the other is not, out of the program.

"If we're going to design a policy we have to design a policy that can accommodate that middle class-family that are a death or a divorce or a job loss away from needing the program," he said.

The plan will see a wholesale change to the way the city charges for its fee-based recreation programs, increasing those fees by 66 per cent - 10 to 20 per cent a year - over the next seven years. The intent of the plan is to move from a recovery of 30 per cent of the costs of delivering programs to 50 per cent.

The plan will also change the way the city deals with low-income residents. Right now, the city offers free programs in 21 priority centres across the city, and operates a welcome policy that employs a means test.

The new system would eliminate the priority centres and would rename the welcome policy the Everybody Gets To Play financing policy and expand it.

As well, the program would provide a range of new free programs: swimming and skating for elementary school students and an optional leadership program for high school students.

Ward 14 (Parkdale-High Park) Councillor Gord Perks worried the elimination of the priority centres, which staff say are over-crowded with people from outside the targeted neighbourhoods, could destabilize the communities they're in.

"These neighbourhoods function very differently from neighbourhoods that are relatively wealthy," Perks said. "That's why it's important we have these tools available to us. This creates relationships in these neighbourhoods - and the question becomes do we have to throw out one kind of resource that we provide in the community to provide another? I would argue not."

Ward 31 (Beaches-East York) Councillor Janet Davis wanted a report on what the impact of increasing fees would be on registration.

"We need some Toronto-specific information in terms of increasing fees," she said. "It may impact some neighbourhoods differently."

The city is engaging in a round of public consultation this week. They'll take place starting Jan. 16 at the Elmbank Community Centre, 10 Rampart Rd. and the Wellesley Community Centre, 495 Sherbourne St., and on Thursday, Jan. 17 at the North York Civic Centre, 5100 Yonge St. and the Scarborough Civic Centre, 150 Borough Dr. All consultations will take place between 7 and 9 p.m.

The matter will come back to the committee for public hearings on Jan. 23, then on to Toronto Council for final approval with the city's budget.