City recommends extending Affordable Access Program for recreation and transit

The Quality of Life standing committee has approved a recommendation to extend the Affordable Access to Recreation and Transit Pilot Program.

The recommendation will be included in the proposed budget for 2026-2027, and if ultimately approved, will extend the pilot program’s expiration from July 1 to December 31, 2026.

The program allows low-income adults to apply for either a $350 credit for the city’s recreation programs or a half-price monthly bus pass.

The proposed extension would allow low-income adults to continue using the program for the duration of 2026, while aligning the pilot’s expiry with the city’s yearly budget.

In a survey of applicants for the pilot, 98 percent approved of the program.

As a pilot program, the Affordable Access Program is not meant to be permanent, but rather to offer insights to the city for the development of a more permanent program in the future.

The program is specifically targeted towards adults, because the city already offers other similar programs for youth and seniors.

When the program expires and is rebuilt into something permanent, the city government will be looking at ways to improve it.

For example, Supervisor of Strategic Initiatives, Marketing, and Community Sport Callie Hemsworth said in this week’s committee meeting that “newcomers in particular can’t pull together the documentation that they need to be eligible for the program in the first year of moving to Canada.”

Hemsworth said that after the pilot, the city could consider widening the program’s eligibility criteria.

Another challenge for the city is limited transit coverage: according to the city’s survey of applicants, those in areas with poor bus coverage took the recreation credit simply because there were limited opportunities to use a bus pass.

As a piece of a potential solution, City Manager John Collin drew attention to the city’s in-progress plan for on-demand transit, to provide bus coverage to areas that are currently poorly serviced.

The On-Demand program is set to begin rolling out in 2026 and expand throughout the following two years.