According to Scouts Canada, Scouting groups had been established as early as 1907 in Canada, and in 1908 Baden-Powell wrote
Scouting for Boys. In his 1981 book
75 Years of Scouting in Canada, Robert Milks, the late Scouts Canada archivist, indicated that the first Scout groups in Canada were founded in 1908. St. Catharines and Merrickville are mentioned as among the locations of the first troops. Boy Scouts and the Scout Movement had a presence in Canada before the formation of Scouts Canada or its parent organization,
The Boy Scouts Association of the United Kingdom were formed. The Canadian General Council continued to be represented internationally by The Boy Scouts Association of the United Kingdom until 30 October 1946, when the Canadian General Council became a direct member of the Boy Scout World Conference, now the
World Organization of the Scout Movement. the Canadian General Council of The Boy Scouts Association later changed its name to
Boy Scouts of Canada by an amendment to its incorporating Act of Parliament. the organization's name was amended to Scouts Canada in the establishing legislation. In July 1930, Ontario's
Hospital for Sick Children organized the
Robert Louis Stevenson Boy Scout Troop to hold field days and weekly scouts and girl guides programming for internees. In 1972, Scouts Canada began accepting female participants as part of its Rover Section. This was expanded in the late 1970s (but some sources cite 1984) to include the Venturer Section. In 1983, Toronto-area Boy Scouts numbered nearly 17,000. By 2008, Toronto-area membership in the gender-neutral Scouts Canada had dropped to around 5,000. As of 2025, that remained to be the case. In 1990, Jim Blain, the Chief Executive of Scouts Canada, was awarded the 202nd
Bronze Wolf, the only distinction of the
World Organization of the Scout Movement, awarded by the World Scout Committee for exceptional services to world Scouting. He was also a recipient of the
Silver World Award. In 1991, Larry White was dismissed from leading Toronto's
Hospital for Sick Children Boy Scout troop because he was homosexual. He appealed to the
Ontario Human Rights Commission. In 1992, co-ed Scouting became an option for all program sections and in 1998 this became policy for all sections. The following year, the organization introduced its first gay Rover Crew for adults in
Toronto, Ontario. In 1999, the national headquarters of Scouts Canada threatened legal action to a traditionalist group that called itself the "Baden Powell Scouts Association of Canada" (BPSAC) if the BPSAC failed to remove the "Baden Powell" from its name. The traditionalists were ordered by
Industry Canada to remove the word "scout" from their name. National executive Andy McLaughlin was adamant that "As far as Scouts Canada is concerned, there's one scouting association in Canada, one in the world, every country has only one that's how Baden Powell set up scouting, he set up one organization per country. He felt anything else would dilute the program, cause confusion and hurt the programs for young people." As part of the re-design, the sash was eliminated as a uniform component, which resulted in smaller proficiency badges being made for Cub Scouts and Scouts to sew directly onto their uniforms. For several years, silicon bracelets were distributed across Canada with the message "Good Turn Week." In addition to the original initiative, a fund was established to sponsor selected community service projects.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ended its association with Scouts Canada at the end of 2019, leading to a membership decline of over 5%. In 2021, Scouts Canada announced a mandatory
COVID-19 vaccination requirement for all in-person meetings, effective 1 November. The vaccine requirement was removed by Scouts Canada effective September 1, 2022. ==Organizational structure==