Why it matters
It would be easy to read a campaign about aquatic capacity as swimmers asking for lane time. It is not. A public pool does a set of jobs for a community that nothing else does, and most of them have nothing to do with sport.
Swimming is a life skill before it is anything else. Children and adults need access to lessons so they can be safe around pools, lakes and the ocean. We live on the southern tip of an island, ringed by water and dotted with lakes — this is not an optional skill here.
Swimming gives children, adults, athletes, seniors and people who need low-impact activity somewhere to stay active year-round. For a lot of people managing injury, chronic pain or age, warm water is not a preference — it is the only form of exercise that still works.
Pools are where families spend time together, neighbours run into each other, children make friends, and people build the loose connections that make a place feel like a community rather than an address.
Water-based recreation works across a wide range of ages, abilities and fitness levels, including for many people who find higher-impact sport difficult or impossible. Accessible water is not an accommodation bolted onto a facility — for a lot of residents it is the facility.
A public pool is recreation that does not require owning expensive equipment or belonging to a private club. Good public facilities are one of the few things that make an active life available to people regardless of income.
Swim clubs, diving, water polo and artistic swimming give young people somewhere to develop skill, discipline, teamwork and confidence — and a reason to be somewhere on a Tuesday night. Those programs need water, and the water is disappearing.
Pools host competitions and events that bring visiting families into the region, fill hotel rooms, support nearby businesses, create jobs, and make this a more attractive place to live and stay.
Pools create some of the best first jobs going — lifeguards, instructors, coaches, recreation staff. Those jobs build confidence, responsibility, teaching skill and leadership in teenagers and young adults. Close the pools and those jobs go with them.
Greater Victoria is losing nine 25-metre lanes of public pool space, and the largest closure lasts about five years. Every reason on this page gets harder the day that water goes.
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