That's really unfortunate and likely something Scouts Canada will regret down the line.

Let me start by saying from where I sit, the third party training you're referring to is called Respect in Sport and it's excellent. I was happy to see them buy that rather than continue trying to develop their own. It's transferable and something you will probably end up taking other places (some of our leaders are also hockey coaches and took it through hockey last year and therefore didn't have to take it with Scouts Canada).

That said, the implementation of Respect in Sport by Scouts Canada has been somewhat heavy handed. Particularly in going around GCs and directly to parents. I don't think it was handled all that well. It caused a lot of stress in our Group.

Our group decided to pay the fee from our small reserves. The Group Commissioner felt volunteering was taxing on time, it can't be taxing on the wallet as well.

I don't have an answer. The structure of Scouts Canada is challenging at best. A small group of employees doing their best to motivate a group of people volunteering their time to keep the programming alive. Challenging.