Executive Commissioner's report and initial SCOUT eh! response

The Executive Commissioner & CEO's overview and report for the year ending August 31, 2006 contains the following statement at its conclusion:

This is the first time we have compiled a comprehensive review of the year.s activities for the information of our members. It forms part of our commitment to better communicate with our stakeholders on an ongoing basis. I hope you find this report useful in better understanding the operations of Scouts Canada. I would also like to note that we have set aside time prior to our AGM in Winnipeg to review of the financial report.

From communications emanating from the Chief Commissioner, including those posted on the National web site's "Ask our Chief Commissioner" page, it is clear that the only people who will be permitted to ask questions during the time set aside and at the AGM will be the Voting-members. In a public business corporation, like General Motors, a shareholder with one share can ask questions. This shareholder is a real stakeholder. In Scouts Canada the Ordinary-member has no such right and is in fact precluded from asking any questions. An ordinary-member is a member in name only whose role is, as a youth member, to be the object of the Scout program or as an adult leader, to be the functionary delivering the Scout program. These roles are, in the grand scheme of things, actually secondary to their role as fee paying and fund-raising minions.

The fact of the matter is that the EC&CEO's report was included in a package of confidential material sent to Voting-members, Council Commissioners and Council Executive Directors. If this is a commitment to better communication with the members I would fear to know what worse communication might look like.

Our EC&CEO purports that this communication is with "our stakeholders". We might do well to ask just who might those stakeholders be? Certainly not the Ordinary-member who has no vote and no say. When Brian Moore, secretary of the Ontario Corporate Body made a sworn affidavit he declared under oath that, "An individual member's interest in Scouts Canada extends only to the right to attend Scout meetings and to apply to participate in Scout activities". He is certainly not describing a stakeholder but a mere program functionary or an object of the functionaries endeavour. We, as ordinary members, are no more stakeholders in Scouts Canada than the man in the moon.

Obviously our senior management does not feel that it can trust this material to be disclosed to mere Ordinary-members. The only rational conclusion for that is that ordinary-members are not stakeholders but, as declared by Mr. Moore, are mere program functionaries who have no stakeholding. Indeed, the "confidential" material was directed to senior staff and senior volunteers. These must be the "stakeholders" whom the EC&CEO is addressing. The inescapable conclusion is that his report is obvious and blatant propaganda. We will see what some critical analysis will do to the other points made in his Overview. Stay tuned.