Council candidate Paul McNamara is calling upon New Westminster council to end the political charade when it comes to their support of a new ten lane competitive pool in our city. This comes after a local resident contacted McNamara to advise that Councillor Jaimie McEvoy, Chair of the Parks and Recreation Committee, told him he had no confidence the city would be able to secure the funding needed to build this project.
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“Recent comments made by councillor McEvoy on the campaign trail are not providing our community with any confidence the current council understand nor have the business sense to build and secure funding for a major capital project like this in our city,” says council candidate Paul McNamara. “It’s shocking that Councillor McEvoy, as the head of our Parks and Recreation Committee, would be telling New Westminster residents he doesn’t believe a ten lane pool will get built due to a lack of funding. That’s not the impression he and his council colleagues left with the public and protestors only a few weeks ago.”
In a Record newspaper article published on June 13th, Mayor Jonathan Cote stated “I am very optimistic that the history of the Canada Games Pool, its history of competition, will make this a very strong sell in terms of being able to obtain a grant…I think that being able to attach the competitive swim component to the grant applications will actually improve our chances of being able to get a grant in what will be a very competitive process, one that we have been waiting several years for the federal government to put out. We really have one shot to put the best case forward.”
After significant protests at city hall and a petition which gathered over 1000 signatures in less than a few weeks, council voted to explore the option of building a ten lane competitive pool. This was contingent on the city actively seeking out and securing funding from senior levels of government for the project.
“It looks like we are in the midst of nothing more than a political charade when it comes to the largest infrastructure project ever undertaken in our city’s history,” says McNamara. “It’s now apparent they just passed the motion to quiet down the protestors when council knew all along they had no intention of ever building a pool that can host competitive swimming.”
The New West Progressives will be announcing within the next week, as part of our overall sports and recreation platform, that we will do everything possible to secure the funding from senior levels of government to build a ten lane competitive pool. This commitment will be clear, unambiguous and will be followed through if our team is elected to council on October 20th.
“We owe it to our kids, to our current and future competitive swimmers, to not say one thing in council and do something different behind the scenes,” says McNamara. “Our elected officials should spend less time uttering doublespeak and more time spent making the critical calls needed to Victoria and Ottawa to get the funding our community deserves.”