Should fit be free in Toronto?

Should health and fitness be something only available to those that can afford to pay?

Contemplating the future of Toronto and the call for ideas, a friend recently pointed me in the direction of the Guardian’s Public Services Awards 2009. The overall winner of last year’s award was the City Council of Birmingham for their Gym for Free project.

It’s so big, so bold… It’s probably not the kind of idea anyone in our now "have not" province or city wants to allow themselves to dream about. But if Birmingham can do it, why not us?

You see, on Valentine’s Day 2008, Birmingham City Council and the public health trust (part of the National Health Service, I gather) partnered up to send an invitation to the residents of the Ladywood District, offering every household free use of civic recreation facilities in return for attending four times a month.

Within seven months, the number of Ladywood residents using public gyms on a regular basis had skyrocketed from just 90 to more than 6,500. The project was so successful, so quickly, that Birmingham has now extended the project to the entire city of 1.1 million residents.

Why does this matter?

Ladywood is one of the most depressed districts in Britain, where most people are too worried about feeding their families to spend precious dollars on gym memberships.

There’s not room here to go into everything to be learned from Gym for Free, but suffice to say that along with the myriad health benefits, the project aims to build social cohesion. It gets people talking, sharing experience. Furthermore, the economic benefits -- particularly in the longer term as they see reduced health costs -- will be significant.

Look, I don’t think that a parks and rec fee increase is the number one issue of this election. But that’s because I live downtown, with lots of access to gyms and recreation centres, and have some disposable income to spend on those things. And when I compare the cost of using city facilities with the cost of private gyms and private lessons, those fee increases still don’t look so bad.

But at the end of the day, shouldn’t all families have access to good facilities and supports? Some families may need an extra hand or incentive to take advantage.

Like Ladywood and Birmingham, there are real health inequalities in our city. In 2008 Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health released a frightening report, “The Unequal City." The report illustrates the impact of Toronto’s health inequalities by showing what would happen if everyone was as healthy as those with the highest income:like, 1,300 fewer low birth weight babies, and nearly 1,600 more children ready to learn at school entry.

It’s pretty clear the City of Toronto needs to think big. We need to reduce poverty, and close the gap on health inequalities.

So along with the Do the Math Campaign, ask the provincial government to immediately introduce a $100/month health food supplement for all adults on social assistance, and set up a process to set rates based on what it actually costs to live a healthy, frugal, dignified life in Ontario -- let’s look at offering more and better services that will help keep residents healthy.

If Birmingham can think big and bold, why can’t we?

About Marit Stiles

Budget for an active Toronto

I am one of those people that anxiously awaits the always entertaining federal and provincial budget announcements every year from Ottawa. I hope for the best, expect the worst and keep my fingers crossed that maybe this will be the day that they wake up and realize what will actually make this country and our cities a better place. 

I have to admit, though, I am constantly amused by the number of complaints upon complaints from every single person that wants their needs to be met, their programs to be flooded with resources and their lives to be bettered. I find it ironic that it becomes a battle between provinces and a clash between people and certain groups that are all out for "me."

To be honest, I am not going to sit here and say that I haven't thought of my needs over others and preach to all of you to be more altruistic. But I will say that on the whole I think we all need to commit to think about what's best for all of us: WE all owe it to each other to make this a better place to live.

Realistically, it all ends up with the privileged few politicians that hold the fate of our city in their hands. The last few years it has become increasingly more apparent that Toronto has one of the largest municipal infrastructure deficits across the nation. This has been a weight that we have been struggling under for years and it shows. 

In November 2009, the city declared that more than half of its capital budget for 2010 will be going towards the maintenance and expansion of the TTC. Actually, transportation is eating up about 70 per cent of the entire budget over the next 10 years, putting aside $11.7 billion.

To put it into perspective, Toronto is already running a $382 million debt and balancing the books calls for, you guessed it, higher taxes and service cuts. But hey, we're going to have some new streetcars out of it. This is a classic case of when all else fails, just cut programs. It seems to be the easiest thing for our government, so they can say they're helping our city by getting us out of debt, when in fact hundreds of thousands of people are going to suffer for it. 

Last year 39 public pools were closed leaving 700,000 kids, students, athletes and adults with nowhere to go for physical activity. With not only childhood, but adult obesity on the rise and health care costs going through the roof, we are cutting after-school programs and increasing the time our citizens can opt for the couch over getting active. You'll be hard pressed to find modern, up-to-date community centres in areas that are desperate for that kind of facility. The access to get active is lacking.

The connection between sport, physical activity and health is a no-brainer. We know this, our politicians know this. By investing in real, quality programming through schools, community centres and local recreational groups, there is the great potential to reach the lives of thousands of Torontonians. Healthcare costs would decrease, albeit not over night, but the development of a city that prides itself on being active is a long-term solution that would dramatically help these costs over time. 

Cutting services and programs is just a means to look good on paper, but off the page is an uglier picture that even a smoother road or faster streetcar can't fix. 

About Alexandra Orlando

We need a decision-making intervention

Anthony Novac.

This is my first blog post for the Star and I must admit that my mind is still on the Olympics.  Last night I pounded the clicker trying to find a channel that could deliver my Olympic fix. No such luck.  My beloved Raptors were losing by 20+ so I opted for an hour of Intervention. One episode was about a poor kid who was following his father's road to ruin - a destructive path of self-denial, self-delusion and bad decision-making (made so much worse by a pain-killer addiction).

Fast forward to this morning and an article in the Star caught my eye. It discussed the opportunity to privatize the management of the City's two ski hills. My first thought was, "really, the City owns two ski hills?" Ustinov's statement about Toronto being New York built by the Swiss also came to mind. 

I became stuck, though, on Councillor Joe Mihevc's apparent opposition to the use of a private ski hill management group which could save the City $800,000, saying that it is "deliberate policy to subsidize" this program.  He defended his position by arguing that the accessibility of recreation, not budgetary concerns, is "the goal of recreation." 

Like the addict on Intervention who convinced himself of a reality that did not exist (despite his steadfast assertions he was neither Italian, a music mogul, nor his father's best friend), Mihevc seems to have taken a position here based on something that simply cannot exist. I'm trying to picture city councillors mandating an $800,000 subsidy to Toronto-area skiers. I mean, is it really City of Toronto policy to have an asset undoubtedly worth millions (and likely 9-figure millions) sit on its balance sheet producing negative cashflow so that maybe a few hundred people who would not otherwise be able to get to the next nearest hill can learn to ski? 

It is an absurd statement by Mihevc.  And it highlights the sort of decision-making errors that evolve from dogma and the reverse-engineering of fact.  

The city owns two ski hills + it believes in recreation accessibility + it has run the hills at a loss = Mihevc skiing subsidy argument.  It's a logical fallacy. I think we deserve better.

About Anthony Novac