Risks Weighed Against Benefits of Using The City of Calgary Recreation Facilities

I am a 3rd generation Albertan my grandfather homesteaded near Turner Valley, I was moved to Calgary when I was 2 after a family tragedy. I learned to skate and swim at the City of Calgary Mount Pleasant facility.

Well sort of.

Skating mostly involved trying to avoid bullies at the unsupervised rinks, and swimming, although they had lifeguards was fraught with danger, I almost drowned, twice.

Basically, it’s a show up with your family and have your family protect you because the City isn’t taking any responsibility. Not cost-effective and doesn’t reflect our conservative, mean, penny-pinching, ‘family values’, whatever they are.

If you are an orphan you are on your own, beaten at the whim of bullies who love those that can’t fight back, as all bullies are cowards, and your life isn’t guarded by lifeguards as they are ineffective for whatever reason, based on evidence.

Fast forward from 1964 to 2017 when I am sent to the gym to do stroke recovery by my physiotherapist. The Killarney facility is recommended for its location but I prefer to try Beltline, recently renovated, new equipment. But they only have a railing on one side of the stairs. Try that when you only have one arm, you can get down but not back up. Not what you would call inclusive or safe. I used the sideways technique and made it work. Barely.

There was a fellow in there who liked to change his clothes in the weight room, displaying his sweating nude body. Friendly, nice guy, charming. In the change room, he liked to rub his penis for all to see, and since I was seated and eye level and he stood in front of me I couldn’t unsee it.

I reported all this to the obese staff who never strayed from their glassed-in cage, eating donuts. I was told a report would be made, but since they didn’t ask my name and never did any follow-up, I suspect no report was made as it might reflect badly on them.

I had progressed in my recovery and was now driving so I switched to Killarney. In winter. Inaccessible for handicapped due to the ice and snow build-up in the parking lot. They actually shovelled the sidewalk, into the handicapped stalls. But no one cared to reason that you have to get to the sidewalk. Inquiries got me answers like ‘I’m a lifeguard I don’t shovel’, ‘it’s roads job’, that kind of put off nonsense. I watched a senior slip and almost fall and I said, ‘why don’t you tell someone?’ She said, ‘Oh they won’t do anything.’ She was right. I did and they didn’t.

The customers at these facilities, for the most part, are short-term, buy a pass to check it out and then go anywhere else.

Why? Bullies are the reason. Charming narcissists monopolize the equipment and abuse the clients. Especially the handicapped who are seen as not able to fight back. One fellow at Killarney named Roger said he just got back from South Africa and refused to isolate during the pandemic because those folks over 70 were going to die anyway. The manager of the facility who I like despite her ineffectiveness called them the tin hat crowd. I call it the prison crowd based on working in them for years as an addictions therapist.

So I’ve tried a few other facilities looking for safe access from the parking lot in winter, and a safe environment in the weight rooms in any season.

I have found neither.

Typically the staff shows little interest in supervising either one.

I asked once what training they had in customer service, as it is an area of concern. ‘Oh we don’t have any training but there is a video online we can go to but it’s not mandatory.’

I have never seen staff in the weight room. Ever.

They have safety and etiquette rules posted on the wall, but no one follows them. I complained at Thorncliff and they responded by taking the rules down.

Another effective memo.

I asked a client at Thorncliff how long he was going to be on a machine he was monopolizing and he responded with abuse. I had invaded his private gym. I went to the glassed-in hamster cage and reported it to a male staff who said, ‘Great, now it’s my problem’. At least he was honest.