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Contracts Procedure

Introduction

Most business relationships involve contracts. Contracts may be required for:

  • Meeting place or camp rentals
  • Program service providers
  • Fundraising suppliers
  • Transportation and equipment rental
  • Property operation, construction, and renovation

Contracts create a future liability to pay for or provide something. They are not usually required for purchases such as camping equipment or groceries.

This procedure applies to contracts for Sections, Groups, Areas, Councils, and Scout Properties.

Sometimes, contracts include hold harmless, waiver, and indemnification agreements, which transfer liability to Scouts Canada for the negligence of organizations and businesses that provide services to us. If any contract includes one of these agreements, please refer to the Third Party Waivers, Indemnification and Hold Harmless Agreements Procedure.

Our Procedure

  1. Before proceeding to select a supplier, the responsible Commissioner or Manager needs to decide whether sole sourcing (only considering one supplier) is acceptable. Normally, the larger the contract, the less likely sole sourcing is acceptable.
  2. Contracts are legal obligations. There are financial penalties for failing to read and meet the conditions of the contract.
  3. The Third Party Waivers, Indemnification and Hold Harmless Agreements Procedure must be followed when the contract includes one of those.
  4. The Group Commissioner, Group Administrator, or another member designated by the Group Committee may sign contracts for meeting place or camp rentals, program service providers, and transportation and equipment rental where the term of the contract is not more than one year and the total value is less than $5,000.
  5. All other contracts for:
    1. Fundraising suppliers
    2. Property operation
    3. Construction and renovation

    shall be submitted to contracts@scouts.ca at least 30 days before the contract is required.
  6. Authority to sign all other contracts is defined in the Delegation of Authority Standard.
  7. Approved contracts will be returned to the originator within three weeks. Where terms need to be renegotiated, the originator will be contacted sooner.

Uncontrolled When Printed: When printed, document cannot be guaranteed to have the current information and should be used with caution. This document is marked “uncontrolled” and the user is responsible for determining if the current version is active. To find the most updated version, please refer to Scouts Canada BP&P on Scouts.ca.