There’s an old joke that asks how you get a bunch of Canadians out of a swimming pool.
The answer is you ask them politely to get out of the pool.
Mayor Gregor Robertson, however, is more interested in getting people into pools, pledging last week to provide free swimming lessons to kids under 14 if he gets re-elected as head lifeguard next month.
The announcement comes shortly after yet another Vision election promise to dip into city coffers and donate 400 grand each year towards a program that provides free breakfasts for students in poorer neighbourhoods. Not to be outdone, NPA candidate Kirk LaPointe pointed out this was actually his idea first and vowed “no Vancouver child will go hungry” under his watch. LaPointe, don’t forget, grew up in poverty, living on butter and sugar sandwiches and probably sweeping chimneys or something after school.
Making sure underprivileged urchins get basic nutritional needs met seems the sort of thing that probably should’ve been taken care of years ago by a ruling party and a bigger priority than, say, lending $690 million to the development firm behind the Olympic Village to finish building it in time.
But better late than never, although we’re a bit baffled as to why free swim lessons are suddenly such a top priority. Especially seeing as how Vision Vancouver are the ones who decided four years ago that preschoolers had to start paying to use community centre pools in the first place.
Free cycling lessons seems a more obvious pick and might even help ensure their beloved bike lanes will remain busy in the years to come.
Maybe it’s an attempt to offset the inevitable number of future drownings after Stephen Harper shut down the Kits Coast Guard base last year.
(The federal government’s indifference to the city’s feelings on this are worth keeping in mind since, should the Kinder Morgan pipeline be approved, Vision claims it will try to stop an increase in tankers in waters the city doesn’t have actual jurisdiction over.)
But it’s not as if local community centre pools aren’t already overpacked. The city estimates it will cost around $120,000 a year to offer the free classes, but it could end up being a heck of lot more if people stop refilling their OneCards due to pools being stuffed even more full of screaming, urinating youngsters.
Here’s an idea worth floating: how about building a few more pools instead? Vancouver has a piddling nine public pools compared to Edmonton’s 15 or Calgary’s 12. On the East Side, where plenty of poor people actually live, New Brighton is the only outdoor one and this year it closed Sept. 1 despite another solid month of sunny weather.
Seems to us keeping pools open later in the season would be one way to allow people to improve their swimming. Unless this isn’t really about providing poor kids an important life skill but rather buying their parents’ votes instead.
