Why should Scouts be any different from other Youth organizations? Yes we have had our share of problems but then so has the Chruch, Schools and many other organizations. The point is not what we have done or not done but how are we dealing with the situation?
Scouts Canada does have a formal interview process and it is one which assists in selecting the right individual for the volunteer positions.
As long as we maintain viligence and be aware that 'no organization' is immune to situations such as this we are doing our best to provide sound programming and leadership to our youth.
Scouting Mom - 12 years ago
I have been a Scout Leader, a Venturer and a Rover. I am now the parent of a Venturer (who previously was a Spark, Brownie, Guide and Pathfinder) and a Scout (previously a Beaver and Cub) and the wife a a Scout Leader. I wholeheartedly support this organization and it's overall ability to be a positive force in our global community. I welcome anyone who legitimately wants to shine a light on wrong doing in any organization, even in one I support. There is no doubt that there have been some deviants that have been able to access youth in the past via the Scouting organization; not unlike any organization that would attract these pedophiles (sporting groups, churches, schools etc); and unfortunately children were irrepairably harmed. For that I and the many others involved in Scouts today or in the past are truely sorry.
My biggest problem with the CBC report (and I watched both of them with my kids) is that, when they interviewed people (not the victims) who were involved with Scouting at the times of the incidents, and had their own children in the organization, who had suspicions or felt things were "not quite right", no one asked why THEY didn't do anything about it. One lady said she felt should tell someone but then told Scouts Canada and thought they would do something about it, and yet she continued to send her children every week to meetings and to camps. Does this absolve her (or any adult involved at that time) of any responsibility? Parents and other adults were there when some of the abuse was going on. Do they not share some responsibility? I was a Leader, ( back in the 1980's when many of these offenses were occurring) I would not be allowing another Leader to tent alone with any child away from the rest of the group.Where is their apology to these poor kids?When some of these kids told their parents, the parents did not pursue things, they hushed it up. Where is their responsibility to these children? Why did CBC not ask them about why they didn't go to the Police? If even one of them had pursued it, it might that have saved others from abuse. Yet I do not see CBC asking them to shoulder some of the responsibility for not pursuing anything, just Scouts Canada.
Part of these people not saying anything is the culture of the time; the same can be said for laxities in rules about collecting information on pedophiles and forwarding it to the appropriate resources. Many people and organizations were unclear on this process. It does not seem just to simply hang all the blame on Scouts Canada for what was done to these poor kids. Where were the parents? What happened to personal accountability to the parents that knew or suspected something.
It takes a village to raise a child. It also takes members of that same village to turn a blind eye. People other than Scouts Canada knew or suspected this was going on and CBC is not asking them to take any responsibility.
Let's face it; nothing beats being involved in your own childs life and activities therein. If you are involved with what they are doing and can talk to them, and they to you, the liklihood of them being in a situation where something bad could happen decreases significantly.
Parents take this as a warning call....be involved with your kids!
Tim - 12 years ago
The facts
In 105 years 17 million youth have been positively influenced through the efforts of 2.5 million volunteers. Many Scouting alumni, including this former Scout, can identify a positive life-changing moment. Scouting is an organization that seeks to provide youth with life skills.
Over a period of 65 years, Scouts Canada has 350 files that are related to child abuse. Of those, less than a dozen identified to date in a KPMG review commissioned by Scouts Canada that should have been reported to the police and do not appear to have been. Upon determining such, Scouts Canada immediately contacts police.
Scouts Canada acknowledges that a small number of deviants has harmed a small number of youth and courageously apologizes for any harm came to any child. Scouts has a volunteer screening program and a duty of care policy to protect youth.
CBC has maliciously painted a picture of wrong doing and deception, inferring that this is the DNA of the organization.
We, the volunteers, are Scouting. We, the volunteers, ascribe to a promise that begins with On My Honour and most of us try to live by our promise and impart on the next generation. We, the volunteers, are parents, neighbours and community members who try to provide a positive opportunity through the delivery of Scouting programs. We do not doubt ourselves. We have faith in who we are, what we do, and the results that make a strong Canada with engaged citizens who have a spiritual awareness and self-esteem.
CBC wants to manufacture a scandal in such a well respected youth serving organization simply to draw more viewers and raise ad rates. I think that such behaviour is the antithesis of what we instil in our youth. CBC is being dishonourable in how it is reporting on theses heart wrenching societal issues that sadly have happened to youth in our organization.
This is Scouting and Guiding week in Canada and to the tens of thousand of volunteers who serve youth across Canada I say your honour is still bright the CBC's assertions to the contrary.
Yours in Scouting,
Former Cub Scout, Scout and Venturer Scout and current volunteer
Tim McNaughton
Bev Stanger - 12 years ago
Both my husband and myself are and were very much a part of the Scouting movement when our children were youth involved in the program. It is very hard to get commitment from parents to become involved with the program, a lot are just using it as a babysitting service. The Scouting movement just does not take anyone with a pulse and have been taking steps for many years to ensure that the youth in the program are safe. Even though these checks are done there are times when some individuals slip through as they have never been flagged before by any law enforcement agency. Not everyone is perfect but those involved, as volunteers, do what they can wiith the resources that they have been provided with. The bad mouthing media does to any "Volunteer orginization" to get a story and sensationalize it is doing more harm to the world of volunteers than to the organizations themselves. The morales and values of this world are lacking and the media is making an orginization that tries to instill this in our youth look like it is being irresposible, now that is criminal! If you want to learn more about Scouting and what it is about, go to meetings and events that the youth are involved with and try to volunteer. See how well you do to become an active member of Scouting!
Simon Hartropp - 12 years ago
Actually these stories have reinforced my confidence in Scouts Canada. It takes guts to stand up and make the public apology such as Steve Kent did. Also it was Scouts Canada itself that took the initiative to call in KPMG to review its archives, and another organisation to review the content of, and the exectuion of, its policies and procedures.
I am a Volunteer member of Scouts Canada, and intend to continue to be a member. To G MacLeod's comment above, I stress that we absolutely do not get whoever we can to fill positions. Yes we advertize and encourage those who might to apply, but there is a rigourous 4-step screening process to become an Adult Volunteer. Details of that process can found at our website scouts.ca. In my West Island Area of Quebec, that process has detected some to whom we have had to say: "Sorry, no, you cannot be a Member".
Robert Craddock - 12 years ago
The apparent vendetta that the CBC has for Scouts Canada astounds me. Why would a public funded organization treat one of the most remarkable movements in the world this way? Scouts has had poor screening in the past and allowed some more than questionable individuals to remain in the movement. Show me an organization that has not had the same problems. Unlike many organizations though Scouts started taking steps long ago and guess what, they did not transform that organization overnight. Scouts works hard to use every possible method available now to ensure that this does not happen and takes further steps to ensure (and has for years) that adult leaders and not in a "one on one" contact situation. Consider the impact that Scouting has had and continues to have in building the values in Canadian youth as well as the truly remarkable impact that it has in bringing youth of many nations together in common values and indeed into contact with one another. I was a Scout, ensured that my children had access to Scouting (and Guiding) programs and will work to have my grandchildren have that opportunity. Scouting has a major challenge here and will overcome it. More people need to step up and help deliver this program to Canadian youth and frankly parents need to stop considering volunteer organizations as convenient babysitters and involve themselves in this aspect of their children's lives. The CBC seriously needs to review it's witchhunt policy or perhaps it's fixation on polarizing the Canadian public as well as their apparent slide to creating sensationalism rather than honest unbiased reporting. What has happened to the CBC? What IS happening to the CBC? Between the two organizations, I'm clear which is a more productive force for building the Canada that I want, and that force is Scouting.
U. R. A. Hyprocate - 12 years ago
It's too bad that not everyone can be as honest and forthright as the role models at the CBC
G. MacLeod - 12 years ago
There are a lot of good people in Scouts and CADETS; UNFORTUNATELY LIKE OTHER ORGANIZATIONS , THEY HAVE FEWER PEOPLE TO HELP WITH RUNNING THEIR PROGRAMS. THEY SEEM TO PANIC AND FILL IN POSITIONS , WITH WHOMEVER THEY CAN Sign up , some of these people are just waiting on the sidelines, waiting for their opportunity. It's time to re-evaluate our youth organizations , maybe they have run their course and be shut down.
Larry Rivers - 12 years ago
It is too bad all the emphasis is being put on a handful of bad apples. Scouting has has a positive affect on over 10 million people in Canada over the last 104 years. Why do we not concentrate on the positive aspects of this organization rather than the negative. Is it because positivity does not sell news
Alejandro Godoy - 12 years ago
I am not sure but I feel that we have been lied by many which includes the government, the church, the army and now scouts, etc.In all cases it involves individuals who do not necessarily represent at all the view point of an institution. Someting tells me that this has to do more with the opportunistic participation of the media keeping alive issues that sells and they can profit from, while given to themselves (the media) a smell of sanctity. Why not to chase those involved instead the institutions? The goverment does great things, so does the church and the army, also the scouts are in same group yet the media keeps on and on and on the negative subject only until no one listen anymore. I wonder if individuals involved in the media have few things to keep quiet, after all they are humans like all.
Why should Scouts be any different from other Youth organizations? Yes we have had our share of problems but then so has the Chruch, Schools and many other organizations. The point is not what we have done or not done but how are we dealing with the situation?
Scouts Canada does have a formal interview process and it is one which assists in selecting the right individual for the volunteer positions.
As long as we maintain viligence and be aware that 'no organization' is immune to situations such as this we are doing our best to provide sound programming and leadership to our youth.
I have been a Scout Leader, a Venturer and a Rover. I am now the parent of a Venturer (who previously was a Spark, Brownie, Guide and Pathfinder) and a Scout (previously a Beaver and Cub) and the wife a a Scout Leader. I wholeheartedly support this organization and it's overall ability to be a positive force in our global community. I welcome anyone who legitimately wants to shine a light on wrong doing in any organization, even in one I support. There is no doubt that there have been some deviants that have been able to access youth in the past via the Scouting organization; not unlike any organization that would attract these pedophiles (sporting groups, churches, schools etc); and unfortunately children were irrepairably harmed. For that I and the many others involved in Scouts today or in the past are truely sorry.
My biggest problem with the CBC report (and I watched both of them with my kids) is that, when they interviewed people (not the victims) who were involved with Scouting at the times of the incidents, and had their own children in the organization, who had suspicions or felt things were "not quite right", no one asked why THEY didn't do anything about it. One lady said she felt should tell someone but then told Scouts Canada and thought they would do something about it, and yet she continued to send her children every week to meetings and to camps. Does this absolve her (or any adult involved at that time) of any responsibility? Parents and other adults were there when some of the abuse was going on. Do they not share some responsibility? I was a Leader, ( back in the 1980's when many of these offenses were occurring) I would not be allowing another Leader to tent alone with any child away from the rest of the group.Where is their apology to these poor kids?When some of these kids told their parents, the parents did not pursue things, they hushed it up. Where is their responsibility to these children? Why did CBC not ask them about why they didn't go to the Police? If even one of them had pursued it, it might that have saved others from abuse. Yet I do not see CBC asking them to shoulder some of the responsibility for not pursuing anything, just Scouts Canada.
Part of these people not saying anything is the culture of the time; the same can be said for laxities in rules about collecting information on pedophiles and forwarding it to the appropriate resources. Many people and organizations were unclear on this process. It does not seem just to simply hang all the blame on Scouts Canada for what was done to these poor kids. Where were the parents? What happened to personal accountability to the parents that knew or suspected something.
It takes a village to raise a child. It also takes members of that same village to turn a blind eye. People other than Scouts Canada knew or suspected this was going on and CBC is not asking them to take any responsibility.
Let's face it; nothing beats being involved in your own childs life and activities therein. If you are involved with what they are doing and can talk to them, and they to you, the liklihood of them being in a situation where something bad could happen decreases significantly.
Parents take this as a warning call....be involved with your kids!
The facts
In 105 years 17 million youth have been positively influenced through the efforts of 2.5 million volunteers. Many Scouting alumni, including this former Scout, can identify a positive life-changing moment. Scouting is an organization that seeks to provide youth with life skills.
Over a period of 65 years, Scouts Canada has 350 files that are related to child abuse. Of those, less than a dozen identified to date in a KPMG review commissioned by Scouts Canada that should have been reported to the police and do not appear to have been. Upon determining such, Scouts Canada immediately contacts police.
Scouts Canada acknowledges that a small number of deviants has harmed a small number of youth and courageously apologizes for any harm came to any child. Scouts has a volunteer screening program and a duty of care policy to protect youth.
CBC has maliciously painted a picture of wrong doing and deception, inferring that this is the DNA of the organization.
We, the volunteers, are Scouting. We, the volunteers, ascribe to a promise that begins with On My Honour and most of us try to live by our promise and impart on the next generation. We, the volunteers, are parents, neighbours and community members who try to provide a positive opportunity through the delivery of Scouting programs. We do not doubt ourselves. We have faith in who we are, what we do, and the results that make a strong Canada with engaged citizens who have a spiritual awareness and self-esteem.
CBC wants to manufacture a scandal in such a well respected youth serving organization simply to draw more viewers and raise ad rates. I think that such behaviour is the antithesis of what we instil in our youth. CBC is being dishonourable in how it is reporting on theses heart wrenching societal issues that sadly have happened to youth in our organization.
This is Scouting and Guiding week in Canada and to the tens of thousand of volunteers who serve youth across Canada I say your honour is still bright the CBC's assertions to the contrary.
Yours in Scouting,
Former Cub Scout, Scout and Venturer Scout and current volunteer
Tim McNaughton
Both my husband and myself are and were very much a part of the Scouting movement when our children were youth involved in the program. It is very hard to get commitment from parents to become involved with the program, a lot are just using it as a babysitting service. The Scouting movement just does not take anyone with a pulse and have been taking steps for many years to ensure that the youth in the program are safe. Even though these checks are done there are times when some individuals slip through as they have never been flagged before by any law enforcement agency. Not everyone is perfect but those involved, as volunteers, do what they can wiith the resources that they have been provided with. The bad mouthing media does to any "Volunteer orginization" to get a story and sensationalize it is doing more harm to the world of volunteers than to the organizations themselves. The morales and values of this world are lacking and the media is making an orginization that tries to instill this in our youth look like it is being irresposible, now that is criminal! If you want to learn more about Scouting and what it is about, go to meetings and events that the youth are involved with and try to volunteer. See how well you do to become an active member of Scouting!
Actually these stories have reinforced my confidence in Scouts Canada. It takes guts to stand up and make the public apology such as Steve Kent did. Also it was Scouts Canada itself that took the initiative to call in KPMG to review its archives, and another organisation to review the content of, and the exectuion of, its policies and procedures.
I am a Volunteer member of Scouts Canada, and intend to continue to be a member. To G MacLeod's comment above, I stress that we absolutely do not get whoever we can to fill positions. Yes we advertize and encourage those who might to apply, but there is a rigourous 4-step screening process to become an Adult Volunteer. Details of that process can found at our website scouts.ca. In my West Island Area of Quebec, that process has detected some to whom we have had to say: "Sorry, no, you cannot be a Member".
The apparent vendetta that the CBC has for Scouts Canada astounds me. Why would a public funded organization treat one of the most remarkable movements in the world this way? Scouts has had poor screening in the past and allowed some more than questionable individuals to remain in the movement. Show me an organization that has not had the same problems. Unlike many organizations though Scouts started taking steps long ago and guess what, they did not transform that organization overnight. Scouts works hard to use every possible method available now to ensure that this does not happen and takes further steps to ensure (and has for years) that adult leaders and not in a "one on one" contact situation. Consider the impact that Scouting has had and continues to have in building the values in Canadian youth as well as the truly remarkable impact that it has in bringing youth of many nations together in common values and indeed into contact with one another. I was a Scout, ensured that my children had access to Scouting (and Guiding) programs and will work to have my grandchildren have that opportunity. Scouting has a major challenge here and will overcome it. More people need to step up and help deliver this program to Canadian youth and frankly parents need to stop considering volunteer organizations as convenient babysitters and involve themselves in this aspect of their children's lives. The CBC seriously needs to review it's witchhunt policy or perhaps it's fixation on polarizing the Canadian public as well as their apparent slide to creating sensationalism rather than honest unbiased reporting. What has happened to the CBC? What IS happening to the CBC? Between the two organizations, I'm clear which is a more productive force for building the Canada that I want, and that force is Scouting.
It's too bad that not everyone can be as honest and forthright as the role models at the CBC
There are a lot of good people in Scouts and CADETS; UNFORTUNATELY LIKE OTHER ORGANIZATIONS , THEY HAVE FEWER PEOPLE TO HELP WITH RUNNING THEIR PROGRAMS. THEY SEEM TO PANIC AND FILL IN POSITIONS , WITH WHOMEVER THEY CAN Sign up , some of these people are just waiting on the sidelines, waiting for their opportunity. It's time to re-evaluate our youth organizations , maybe they have run their course and be shut down.
It is too bad all the emphasis is being put on a handful of bad apples. Scouting has has a positive affect on over 10 million people in Canada over the last 104 years. Why do we not concentrate on the positive aspects of this organization rather than the negative. Is it because positivity does not sell news
I am not sure but I feel that we have been lied by many which includes the government, the church, the army and now scouts, etc.In all cases it involves individuals who do not necessarily represent at all the view point of an institution. Someting tells me that this has to do more with the opportunistic participation of the media keeping alive issues that sells and they can profit from, while given to themselves (the media) a smell of sanctity. Why not to chase those involved instead the institutions? The goverment does great things, so does the church and the army, also the scouts are in same group yet the media keeps on and on and on the negative subject only until no one listen anymore. I wonder if individuals involved in the media have few things to keep quiet, after all they are humans like all.