The Scout and Guide movement in Canada is served by many separate organizations, some with various national and international affiliations.
The Scout and Guide movement in Canada is served by many separate organizations, some with various national and international affiliations.
In Canada, two Scouting associations cooperate for membership in the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM):
Canada is the only country that has more than one WOSM member association without a national federation. Scouts Canada and Association des Scouts du Canada send a joint delegation to meetings of the World Organization of the Scout Movement. This is coordinated through the Committee on Cooperation.
Affiliated to Scouts Canada are the Salvation Army Life Saving Scouts.
The Guiding association within the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts is Girl Guides of Canada.
There is one association affiliated with the UIGSE-FSE, with six groups in Ontario and one in Quebec:
Canada has several associations which trace their roots to the Baden-Powell Scouts' Association in the United Kingdom. Some of them are members of the World Federation of Independent Scouts.
There are also a number of independent Scouting and Guiding associations active in Canada. Among them are
According to the book 75 Years of Scouting in Canada, the first Scouting groups in Canada were founded in 1908, the same year Baden-Powell's book, Scouting for Boys was published. St. Catharines and Merrickville are mentioned as among the locations of the first troops. [1]
Scouts Canada states "There is evidence that a few Scouting groups started up in Canada in 1907", [2] but provides no further details.
Chums Scouts, British Boy Scouts, the World Scouts, Girl Peace Scouts and Life Saving Scouts of the Salvation Army, Boys' Brigade scouts, Church Lads' Brigade scouts and Lone Scouts of America all operated in Canada. [3] [4] [5]
Separate Canadian-originated and based organizations of boy scouts were formed as early as 1909 with some Provinces having competing organizations. The Canadian Scouts existed from 1917 to the early 1930s, mainly in Ontario.
Scouts Canada was formed in 1914 as the Canadian General Council of The Boy Scouts Association of the United Kingdom.
Numerous Francophone and Francophone Catholic scout organizations were established in Canada from the 1910s. [6] See also Association des Scouts du Canada.
Armenian Scouts, Latvian, Estonian and Lithuanian Scouts, Polish Scouts, Plast Ukrainian Scouts, Russian Scouts in Exile and Hungarian Scouts were all well established in the late 1940s.
On 6 July 1983 Canada Post issued 'Scouting, 1908-1983' designed by François Dallaire, based on a drawing by Marc Fournier. The 32¢ stamps are perforated 13.5 mm and were printed by Ashton-Potter Limited. [7]
Scouting, also known as the Scout Movement, is a worldwide youth movement employing the Scout method, a programme of informal education with an emphasis on practical outdoor activities, including camping, woodcraft, aquatics, hiking, backpacking, and sports. Another widely recognized movement characteristic is the Scout uniform, by intent hiding all differences of social standing in a country and encouraging equality, with neckerchief and campaign hat or comparable headwear. Distinctive uniform insignia include the fleur-de-lis and the trefoil, as well as merit badges and other patches.
The Polish Scouting and Guiding Association is the coeducational Polish Scouting organization recognized by the World Organization of the Scout Movement and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. It was founded in 1918 and currently is the largest Scouting organization in Poland. The first ZHP was founded in 1916, the current one is the fourth organization with this name. It is a public benefit organization as defined by Polish law.
The Scout Promise is a spoken statement made by a child joining the Scout movement. Since the publication of Scouting for Boys in 1908, all Scouts and Girl Guides around the world have taken a Scout promise or oath to live up to ideals of the movement, and subscribed to a Scout Law. The wording of the Scout Promise and Scout Law have varied slightly over time and from country to country. Although most Scouting and Guiding organizations use the word "promise", a few such as the Boy Scouts of America tend to use "oath" instead.
The Confederation of European Scouts, called in French Confédération Européenne de Scoutisme and abbreviated as CES, was formed in Brussels, Belgium, on 12 November 1978 and is still based in Belgium. CES stresses the European dimension of the Scouting programme and claims to provide the "authentic Scouting of Baden-Powell". The CES is a confederation of national federations. The CES is a split-off from the Fédération du Scoutisme Européen (FSE) later renamed to the Union Internationale des Guides et Scouts d'Europe; it left after controversies about the importance of religious elements in the single associations' programs and co-education. The exact number of members of the CES is unknown.
Traditional Scouting is "old-fashioned" or "back to basics" Scouting in some form, often with an emphasis on woodcraft and scoutcraft activities. As a pluralist movement, there is no one set definition for the term, but most traditionalists share a common set of values and procedures. Traditionalists aim to return the Scout Movement to something approximating its original style and activities; rejecting the trend of modernizing the program in an attempt to widen its appeal and/or use the name "Scouts" for new programs for ever-younger children.
Scouting and Guiding in Queensland is represented by Scouts Australia, Girl Guides Australia, Plast Ukrainian Scouts, and the Australian Baden-Powell Scouts' Association.
Scouting in the United States is dominated by the 1.2 million-member Boy Scouts of America and the Girl Scouts of the USA and other associations that are recognized by one of the international Scouting organizations. There are also a few smaller, independent groups that are considered to be "Scout-like" or otherwise Scouting related.
Scouting and Guiding in Lithuania consist of a number of different organizations, some of them connected to international bodies. Besides open associations, there are also some for the national minorities living in Lithuania, as well as Girl Scouts of the USA.
Scouting and Guiding in Ontario has a long history. Although there is some dispute about the founding of the first Scouting Group, both 1st Merrickville and 1st St. Catharines Scout Group have a documented existence from 1908. In 1955, the 8th World Scout Jamboree was held at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. Scouting continues in Ontario to the present day, serving thousands of youths in programs that suit the environment in which they live.
Throughout the world there are many museums related to Scouting dedicated to preserving, communicating, and exhibiting the heritage of the Scouting movement for purposes of study, education, and enjoyment of society. A downloadable world directory of Scouting museums is available from the US Scouting Service Project.
Religion in Scouting and Guiding is an aspect of the Scout method that has been practiced differently and given different interpretations in different parts of the world over the years.
Non-aligned Scouting organizations is a term used by the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM), World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) and their member national organizations to refer to Scouting organizations that are not affiliated with them. See List of non-aligned Scouting organizations.
The Scouting and Guiding movement in Poland consists of about twelve independent organizations with an overall membership of about 160,000 Scouts and Guides. The largest organization by membership is Polish Scouting and Guiding Association with about 140,000 members.
There are various controversies and conflicts that involve the Scouting movement. Scouting has sometimes become entangled in social controversies such as in nationalist resistance movements in India. Scouting was introduced to Africa by British officials as an instrument of colonial authority but became a subversive challenge to the legitimacy of British imperialism as Scouting fostered solidarity amongst African Scouts. There are also controversies and challenges within the Scout Movement itself such as current efforts to turn Scouts Canada into a democratic organization.
The Scout and Guide movement in Australia consists of:
The Scout and Guide movement in Malta is served by three organizations:
Scouting and Guiding in the United Kingdom is served by several different organisations:
The British Boy Scouts and British Girl Scouts Association is an early scouting organisation, having begun as the Battersea Boy Scouts in 1908. The organisation was renamed as the British Boy Scouts and launched as a national organisation on 24 May 1909. In association with other Scout organisations, the BBS formed the National Peace Scouts in 1910. The BBS instigated the first international Scouting organisation, the Order of World Scouts in 1911.
The BPSA in Canada was established in Victoria, British Columbia in 1996 as The Baden-Powell Scouts' Association of Canada (B-PSAC), rejecting the perceived modernization of the Scout method by Scouts Canada and sharing its aims with the other branches of the B-PSA. It is affiliated with the World Federation of Independent Scouts. The association was incorporated in British Columbia in 2000.
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