I am a student-athlete at the University of Toronto and I will be voting “no” to the Varsity Centre levy.

I’m writing this with more than a little trepidation, as I anticipate receiving the label “traitor.” This is because, somewhere along the line, in the eyes of the “Yes” committee, being a student-athlete became synonymous with supporting the levy. In my role as a team captain, I’ve been called upon to attend various meetings in the past few months. Some have been explicitly about the Varsity Centre. Others have been entirely unrelated. Regardless of the actual subject of these meetings, I am greeted with the usual spiel. I am bombarded with pressure to not only check off the “yes” box on my ballot, but to encourage my friends and classmates to do the same. I have had posters and buttons thrust into my hands, e-mails pile up in my inbox, and speeches galore reminding me to support the levy.

I support athletics and recreation at the University of Toronto, and I certainly have been privileged by my involvement in sport. But voting no to the Varsity Centre Levy isn’t about a vision for inclusive and barrier-free athletics or the pursuit of high-performance sport at this institution, both of which I advocate. It is a question of principle, and a question of the direction we wish to see education in this province go. The “yes” campaign reminds me that I have a “wonderful” opportunity to leave future generations a “world-class” facility.

But do I want to leave behind a legacy of debt? Do I want to set a precedent for further levies to fund capital projects at this university?

Many of my teammates struggle to remain active as varsity athletes, as they try to pay the highest tuition in the country, maintain good academic standing, and travel to competitions every weekend. Do we want a beautiful new training environment? Absolutely. But the cost is too high, and the students are the last people who should be paying for it. Why isn’t the university footing more of the bill?

While I am put off by the presumptuousness of the “Yes” committee, which assumes every jock will mindlessly support its agenda, that’s not a good enough reason to vote “no.”

But the fact remains that there are countless other reasons to do so.

Several months ago, student leaders at a meeting of the Committee on Student Services (COSS), voted against the construction of the Varsity Centre. Even those supporting it felt that the decision was beyond their scope and ought to be put to the students.

In my opinion, a “Yes” vote is also beyond the scope of the current student body. By voting for a levy, we are imposing our decision upon students at this university for years to come. And there is not doubt that the cost of education will steadily increase for our successors here at U of T.

On Monday, David Phillips, writing in these pages, worried about what might result at the hands of the “No” committee. “I shudder to think the answer to that is nothing at all,” he says. The absence of a new athletic facility will be unfortunate for all the students at U of T, especially athletes like myself. But I’d rather see “nothing” than yet another imposition upon the pockets of students.