Bruce Kidd got into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame for running. He might be facing the hardest race of his life next week.
Kidd is the dean of the Faculty of Physical Education and Health at the University of Toronto. A former gold-medal winning track star, Kidd is the man behind the Varsity Centre redevelopment plan, an almost $200 million effort to redevelop the site of Varsity Stadium.
Built in 1924, Varsity Stadium is crumbling. Kidd wants to replace its sagging stands and cinder track with a new sports complex that will include a new artificial-surface football field and running track, 5,000 spectator seats, a new NHL-sized ice rink, workout rooms, classrooms, and an 800 bed student residence.
The project is supported by many students in the Phys. Ed. Program, and across the campus intramural sports players are hoping the facility will reduce the squeeze for space and playing time at the university’s existing rinks and weight rooms.
But some students are unhappy that the new facility will be paid for through a levy that will add to the financial burden of getting a post-secondary education.
If the project is approved next week, part of the estimated $45.4 million cost of the first phase of the Varsity Centre will be paid through a student levy. Although not slated to be completed until at least 2005, while the facility is being built, full-time students will pay an extra $25 on top of their tuition and incidental fees.
Once the facility is open, full-time students will pay $70 per year until the debt is repaid—an estimated 25 years. The amount will rise each year to keep pace with inflation. At a town hall meeting on January 10, Kidd told the audience that the new facility will “provide a dramatic new student resource” and will become “a fabulous new student centre.”
Kidd also said that the proposed levy is both fair and necessary if the provincial and federal governments hold off on contributing to the project. “It is the fairest way to assess a cost on a community,” he said. “We’re caught between a rock and a hard place,” Kidd added. “These are not easy times… let’s move ahead.”
At the meeting, Graduate Student Union president Jorge Sousa provided polite, but firm opposition to the levy plan. “The issue is equity,” Sousa said. “There really hasn’t been a debate or a dialogue as to if we want this project on campus… this is about empire building,” Sousa added.
Sousa told the audience that a student levy was unfair because students should not have to pay for capital projects at the university.
Dean Kidd countered by telling the meeting that “there is a long history of similar levies on the campus” to pay for facilities like the Athletic Centre and Scarborough’s Bladen Library.
Council on athletics and recreation co-chair Darren Levstek told the meeting that he was supporting the Varsity Centre plan. “We need this project. I truly believe that,” Levstek said. He cautioned the audience that U of T may not get any new sports facilities unless students chip in to pay for them.
“We’re not going to move ahead and things are going to get stagnant,” Levstek added. “We need to find a way of doing this and that is the levy.”
When the floor was opened to questions from the audience, warm support was heard from Phys. Ed. students, intramural sports players and Varsity Blues athletes.
“Seventy bucks… I probably spend that much on beer,” one student said.
But opponents to the plan raised their objections. Chris Ramsaroop, a former president of the Students’ Administrative Council, said students should be fighting this levy by going to the provincial government and the administration. The Varsity Centre project will be debated at the Tuesday, January 14 meeting of the Council on Student Services at Croft Chapter House, 8:00 p.m.
Photograph by Simon Turnbull
