Scouts Canada says it has eliminated nearly one-third of its paid staff positions, as the organization attempts to balance its books in the face of an ongoing deficit of about $5 million.
“A deficit is when your expenses are outpacing your revenues. And when this continually happens, quite simply it’s just not sustainable,” said Jordan Moore, chair of Scouts Canada’s board of governors.
“Had we not acted, we would have had over 45,000 youth across Canada not have a Scouts Canada to return to,” she said.
The job cuts — which are spread across the country and which work out to the equivalent of 44 full-time positions — are just one of several moves the 110-year-old organization has made recently in an attempt to stabilize its financial position.
According to a report released this past May, Scouts Canada has also raised membership fees, reduced central spending, and taken steps to unload some of its properties, which it says currently cost about $1 million a year to maintain.
Loss of membership and soaring legal fees
Moore says the pandemic hit Scouts Canada hard, resulting in a 50 per cent loss of participants.
Though participation has now climbed up to 45,000 young people nationally, it’s still 12,000 below where membership sat in 2019 — a number which is itself a far cry from the organization’s peak in the mid-1960’s, which is estimated to have been closer to 300,000.
Moore also told CBC Toronto there have been a number of “unforeseen and unpredictable” legal expenses this year that have further drained the Scouts’ bank accounts.
Over the years, the organization has made headlines as it navigates settlements and criminal trials against former volunteers, including for sexual abuse cases.
Stephen Greensides says he was not supported as an employee dealing with heavy files in the safe scouting department. Scouts Canada has denied all allegations made against it.
As the May report lays out, Scouts Canada has no insurance to help pay for legal challenges related to incidents that took place between 1968 and 2002.
“Recent legal challenges have significantly reduced investments intended for this purpose, and the number of historical cases being reported has increased substantially,” it says.
A ‘volunteer-lead model’
As for what the future will bring, Moore says that a new strategic plan will be unveiled in November of this year, explaining that the Scouts plan to embrace what she describes as a “volunteer-lead model … to empower our adult volunteers to really step in, and own those leadership roles across the country.”
Kevin Beleskey, who has volunteered for the Scouts for the last 17 years, said volunteers like him understand they’re in the midst of a “transition phase.”
“Now the paid staff are not there, so they need to restructure the volunteer organization to provide volunteer support for the volunteers,” he said.
According to Scouts Canada, about half of the positions that were eliminated worked directly with volunteers to provide support and help with recruitment.
As to whether current and new volunteers will step up to take on greater levels of responsibility, “that is the million dollar question,” said Beleskey, who lives in Scarborough, Ont.
Terry Fielder, another longtime Scouts volunteer in Pickering and Ajax, Ont., has had a front-row seat for the decreasing levels of participation since he joined in 2006.
“There’s now only three groups operational in Pickering and two groups operational in Ajax. There used to be 20 when I started,” he said.
Both Fielder and Beleskey say that above all, they hope the job cuts and other cost-saving measures are effective at keeping scouting alive in Canada.
“I hope that scouting does grow,” said Fielder. “[We’ve] got to get our stuff in front of parents and let them see us and, and see that there’s an opportunity for kids to develop and youth to grow.”
