New waiver for Scouts Canada and Padi America

I understand and agree that neither my instructor(s), _________________________________________, the facility through which I receive my instruction, ____________________________________________, nor PADI Americas, Inc., nor its affiliate and subsidiary corporations; nor SCOUTS CANADA, nor any of their respective employees, officers, agents, contractors or assigns (hereinafter referred to as “Released Parties”) may be held liable or responsible in any way for any injury, death or other damages to me, my family, estate, heirs or assigns that may occur as a result of my participation in this diving program OR as a result of the negligence of any party, including the Released Parties, whether by act or omission.

Would you sign this after the years of being told that we could not sign waivers for the youth. I am willing to accept responsibility and the consequences of my negligence, everyone else should too. It looks to me that Scouts Canada now has a waiver!

The point of these things is so often missed... I write this both as a lawyer and an experienced diver, who lives on the St. Lawrence River where there are annual diving accidents. Every year experienced divers die within 10 minutes of my home, because they either made a stupid mistake, got lazy, or the alien environment of being at pressure caused a major health event. It is far from hypocritical to require these waivers, because diving is very, very dangerous. The waiver is ALL about transfer of risk (there is a whole module on this topic in every Wood Badge II).

Diving is not just an inherently dangerous activity. It appears on life insurance questionnaires as a risk factor against granting insurance. As a diver, you practically go to a different planet. The rules for your existence under water are completely different and alien from life on the surface, and you literally can die in seconds if you make one. little. mistake. Being underwater for any length of time breathing from canned air is very, very dangerous.

I would not operate a dive program without these waivers. You may as well sign the deed to your house over if you don't. What the waivers do is they prevent nuisance lawsuits from the families of people who died because the person made a fatal error, or panicked underwater. Let's face it, nobody knows what really happened in a diving death except the dead diver, and it is easy to assess someone as being negligent, at least legally. The result would be litigation freeze, and Scouts Canada would cease to be involved in risky activities like diving, rock climbing, white water canoeing/kayaking, and even a lot of lightweight and winter camping.

Now, on the other point (which again, has been missed by leaders and parents over and over and over), signing a waiver for other organizations VOIDS OUR INSURANCE! Our insurer will not cover us if we sign these things, and this is not an SC decision, it is the insurer's decision. SC is simply following the terms of the contract with the insurer by training us not to sign. Therefore, in advance, you contact your Council and have them contact your third-party service provider to work out the details of how to proceed. You have to plan these things, and this appears both in WB I (live and e-course) and in WB II. It is simply an aspect of proper planning, and if you can't send your youth to a rock-climbing facilityd (or a Santa Claus parade) because the provider demands to have their parents' sign waivers, and you didn't get Council to look after this for you, you have no one to blame but yourself, because you didn't follow B.P. & P.

It may not be fair, but welcome to life.