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There's been plenty to whinge about over the past year for those who don't care for taxes and fees - and at first blush, Monday's announcement of Toronto's "Everybody Gets To Play" policy for financing city recreation programs seems like another golden opportunity.

The program, once it's fully unveiled seven years from now, will see most folks taking classes and programs at city facilities paying on average 66 per cent more in fees than they do now. How easy would it be to just drop the "l" in "Play," run off a few dozen satirical tutus, and send the whole Ballet Level 1 class from the Mitchell Field Community Centre down to Toronto Council chambers chanting "Everybody Gets To Pay!" until security intervenes.

As much as I'd like to see the award-winning photograph as that protest would no doubt make, may I take this opportunity to discourage any ballet-parents who are so-inclined. Because hidden behind that encroaching fee hike is a plan for recreation programs that is nothing but sensible, progressive and fair - and just this once, Torontonians should really just recognize this and pony up.

This may sound harsh, but consider the facts.

Right now, Torontonians pay some of the lowest fees for recreation services in the entire city - recovering on average just 30 per cent of what it costs the city to deliver those programs. Many municipalities surrounding Toronto, meanwhile, aim for nearly complete cost recovery. The City of Mississauga pays for more than half of its total parks, recreation and forestry budget alone charging for programs.

Torontonians have it so good, of course, for good historical reasons. Prior to amaglamation in 1998, the former City of Toronto - the most populous of the six pre-amalgamation municipalities - had a long tradition of offering all its recreation programs without charging anyone but property taxpayers, in the name of inclusiveness for those families that couldn't afford to pay fees. Other former municipalities charged for similar programs, and made sure that families were looked after by informally waiving fees where appropriate.

Harmonizing those different systems was an exercise in largely unsatisfying compromise. The city set overall fees at a fairly low level and to deal with poorer users, did two things. It established a welcome policy so that those passing a means test could have their fees covered to a point; and it set up 21 community centres in high-priority neighbourhoods where the fees would simply be waived.

The assumption that disadvantaged people across Toronto could be best served by providing free programs in the areas where most were concentrated led to the sorts of problems that you'd expect: registered programs at these community centres have been packed full of people from outside those communities before the locals got a chance to register.

And on a broader scale, the program was a money-loser, costing the city about $3 million in lost fees.

So the new plan simply raises the cost recovery from the 30 per cent that it is now, to 50 per cent seven years from now. The priority centres are gone, and the welcome policy expanded. And the city will also expand the number of free programs it offers: most dramatically, a city-wide in-school swim training program and another ice-skating program, so Toronto youngsters can survive water-sports in the summer and video games and junk-food in the winter.

And at the end of it all, the fees will still likely be lower than those paid by our 905 neighbours. It's hard to see the down-side of this plan.