By Jack Brittle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
On November 3, the City of Burlington held its monthly Committee of the Whole meeting to discuss various items relevant to the city and its residents.
Zohair Khan delegated to council to speak to a motion regarding a potential audit of the process that decided space allocation for competitive youth swimming.
If passed, the motion would direct the City Auditor to perform the audit and report back to the Committee of the Whole by December 2.
Khan is a swim parent and volunteer for the Burlington Aquatic Devil Rays (BAD), whose bid for city pool time was denied in July. Khan said the process in question has “affected public confidence in how Burlington governs community access to its facilities.” He also clarified that his delegation does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of BAD itself.
Khan said that in 2020, the city required bidders to submit proof of nonprofit incorporation as part of their Request for Proposal (RFP), but that in 2025, the clause was changed to require “a current and valid certificate of incorporation as either a nonprofit or not-for-profit organization.”
“This phrase does not exist in Ontario law,” Khan said. “A certificate of incorporation is issued once at the birth of an organization, and it never expires. The only document that can be considered current is a certificate of status, which is what BAD submitted.”
Khan said this clause was like “requesting a birth certificate to understand if a person is alive and well.” Because of BAD’s failure to submit this document, their proposal was not reviewed by the city.
“That is not fairness,” Khan said. “That is bureaucracy collapsing on itself.”
Khan referenced a city requirement regarding a percentage of swimmers being Burlington residents. Khan claimed that the city changed this requirement in September.
“The winning club was recognized for agreeing to meet an 85% Burlington resident threshold by the end of September 2025, months after the RFP deadline,” Khan said. “It is important to note that BAD’s submission already included residency data for the past five years, meeting this requirement. In September, the city further shifted the goalpost to define the 85% as swimmers swimming at Burlington pools, as opposed to 85% of your swimmers, which further affected us. At this point, we had lost city hours. BAD had to contract time at the YMCA, a private pool, just to keep our kids swimming.”
Khan said that he appreciated the marginal hours that BAD was ultimately given, after a settlement with the city, but that the city had two different standards for BAD and the winning organization, the Golden Horseshoe Aquatic Club (GHAC).
“Rules that feel unclear or uneven erode confidence no matter who wins,” Khan said. “The city applied zero tolerance to one bidder while allowing flexibility for another.”
According to the Motion Memorandum, the audit would seek to reveal “the chain of events, including the timing of when key documents were issued by the city, received by the bidders, evaluated by staff, and reported back to bidders, any differences in approach that were taken between the processes for allocating space in city pools between adults and youth. And definitions and requirements within city procurement documents, including whether those definitions and requirements are aligned with the city’s Procurement Bylaw.”
Khan said that the last piece is “critical, because section 270 of the Municipal Act requires municipal procurement to be clear, fair, and transparent.”
“Behind these policies are real Burlington families and children who lost training lanes overnight,” Khan said. “Parents now driving to Oakville, Hamilton, and Milton, volunteer coaches and board members who spent the summer seeking basic clarity from the city they’ve partnered with for decades. For our families, the impact has been catastrophic. The long-term damage to a grassroots, volunteer-powered program is real, and it will take time to repair.”
“This isn’t about lawyers and clauses, it’s about community,” Khan continued.
“When a city issues an RFP with ambiguous language, relies on technicalities, and then communicates in ways that do not match the document, public faith is eroded.”
Mayor Marianne Meed Ward asked Khan what he hopes the outcome of the audit will be.
“To be honest, the ideal scenario is the one of least friction,” Khan said. “We’re not here to litigate an RFP or waste tax dollars at the city level, or the limited funds that a not-for-profit has. Ideally, we want acknowledgment that there was a gap in the process, and then some sort of remediation to allow our club to continue to exist in Burlington and provide the services we’ve provided for 40 years.”
Khan said that changing the current contract with the city to get more pool hours would “definitely be a starting point.”
Cody Bradt, chief operating officer and associate head coach for GHAC, delegated next, speaking to the same motion.
Bradt said that the club is “off to a booming start, even with the delays caused by the legal matter that followed the RFP process. Despite those setbacks, programs have launched with extraordinary momentum.”
Bradt said that GHAC followed the stipulated RFP process.
“It was open, transparent, and thorough. When we were unsuccessful in 2020, we respected that outcome and moved forward,” Bradt said. “We were successful this time in the youth bid, and we are proud and excited to begin. What came after, however, was painful and unnecessary.”
GHAC was asked by the city to give up some of the pool time that they were awarded as part of the RFP process in order to “reduce the tension within the community.”
“That was not an easy task,” Bradt said. “But we agreed because we believed unity was more important than division.”
Bradt also said that GHAC was itself on the losing end of an RFP process this year when they were not awarded a city contract for adult swim hours.
“We participated in good faith,” Bradt said. “The city made its decision, and just as before, we accepted that result without question, because that is what it means to respect a fair, transparent process.”
Bradt also addressed what he referred to as “misinformation that has circulated in the media and online.”
“There have been false claims made about our organization, claims that are simply untrue,” Bradt said. “The Golden Horseshoe Aquatic Club has been a part of this community for over 15 years. We have run programs in Burlington facilities long before the first RFP ever took place. In fact, there are old contracts still on file with the city, far before 2020, showing our longstanding partnership. We didn’t suddenly arrive in Burlington. We have been serving this community faithfully for more than a decade and a half.”
Bradt also said that GHAC was the subject of a formal complaint filed with Swim Ontario by a member of the community questioning its right to operate and offer programs within Burlington.
“While I am not at liberty to release those reasons without the express permission of Swim Ontario, we were completely vindicated, and our right to offer services in this community was validated,” Bradt said. “Swim Ontario, the governing body for the sport and its dispute resolution office, determined that the Golden Horseshoe Aquatic Club has every right to operate here in Burlington, and that our work is in full compliance with all provincial standards, regulations, and requirements.”
Bradt claimed that the city has spent tens of thousands of dollars in staff time resources to address the dispute between BAD and GHAC. He claimed GHAC has spent thousands of dollars of its own resources as a direct result of “council’s involvement in matters tied to the legal proceedings.”
Meed Ward asked Bradt if he would support council going forward with the audit.
While Bradt has no problem with the city conducting the audit, he feels that if they do, the RFP process for adult swim hours, which GHAC lost, should also be audited.
He suggested that the city may be opening itself up to further litigation amongst different RFPs within the city, depending on what the findings of the audits are.
“We would just like to move forward with what we have in place, although it’s not where we were when this contract was first awarded,” Bradt said. “But for the betterment of the community, we came to terms with the city and city’s legal team to come to an agreement, so I’d like to move forward with that and stop wasting all of taxpayers’ dollars on a subject that serves less than 1500 constituents.”
Bradt raised concerns about the process of BAD acquiring pool time from the YMCA.
“I don’t know this for 100% certain, but my understanding is that the Burlington Y is on city-owned land, so I don’t know what the city’s involvement with that was, but we got told we were getting more pool time at the Burlington Y, and that got rescinded. And all of a sudden, BAD acquired it. So it’s interesting how that process unfolded as well.”
Paul Sharman, Ward 2 councillor, asked Bradt how GHAC was able to satisfy the RFP’s requirement for a current and valid certificate of incorporation as either a nonprofit or not-for-profit organization, when BAD did not.
“We had the document that was required in the RFP process, the initial certificate of incorporation, which was the same document that we submitted in the 2020 RFP,” Bradt said. “We didn’t need a certificate of status or anything like that because we already had it. We had the initial paperwork that was required, which was the valid certificate of incorporation.”
The Committee of the Whole referred the entire item regarding the audit to the Audit Committee, for which Ward 2 Councillor Lisa Kearns noted that she would call a special meeting prior to December.
