Private securityTougher requirements for Ontario private security guards

The "pen and a pulse" standard no longer applies // Source: blueline.ca

The job ads are all over the Internet, promising up to $24 an hour for work manning perimeter gates and waving metal-detector wands during the G8 and G20 summits in southern Ontario.

Nearly 1,100 private security personnel are being hired for a couple of weeks in late June, when heads of state and other global bigwigs will meet in Huntsville and Toronto.

Contemporary Security Canada, the firm contracted by the Royal Canadian mounted Police (RCMP) to provide screening at entry points to the chunk of downtown Toronto that will be barricaded, has posted hiring notices for licensed security guards on classified site Kijiji, as have other firms needing temporary staff.

CBC News reports that that it will not be a quick, easy way for a novice to scalp a few bucks from the federal government’s summit security budget of close to $1 billion.

Barriers rise

Mere months ago, all it took was “a pulse and a pen” to qualify as a security guard in Ontario, as one online poster on Craigslist put it. Stop in at the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, fill out an application, pay $80, and undergo a criminal-record check —then, two weeks later, the license card arrived in the mail.

The criteria are more arduous now, meaning those G8 and G20 jobs will likely be accessible only to people who already have the right credentials.

• As of 15 April, anyone seeking a new security-guard license in Ontario has to take a course and pass a test before submitting the paperwork to the Community Safety Ministry.
• The week-long course is offered by 500 accredited schools, colleges, and private security firms across the province and costs around $400, depending on where you go. Candidates have to be certified in first aid.
• Then comes the written test, a 75-minute, 60-question multiple-choice exam administered at 55 centers across the province by private company Serco DES, which Ontario has contracted. It costs $60.
• Only then can an aspiring security guard send in an application to the ministry.

Guards who already have a license are exempt from the course requirement and would not have to write the test before getting hired for the G8 or G20, though they will have to take it eventually.

Anybody hoping to get licensed in the next few weeks, however, in time for the summit, is probably out of luck. The next round of courses started Monday, 7 June, and the first available test date after that is the following week. It takes five days to get test results, and then two to three weeks for the ministry to process an application.

In other words, it would be nearly impossible to have a new license in hand by Contemporary Security’s 15 June deadline.

Condos beefing up

CBC News notes that other companies are hiring for summit-related vigilance, but they also require candidates to have an Ontario security guard license.

Toronto-based Reilly Security is taking on 120 extra workers for the 3½ weeks spanning the G20, 90 percent of whom will staff downtown Toronto condos, businesses, and buildings within the outer “traffic zone” that police are setting up to keep away motorists and watch everyone else. The guards will be paid between $11 and $18 an hour, Reilly training manager Andrew Landrigan said, and need a valid provincial license.

The Hamilton branch of G4S Secure Solutions is advertising on Kijiji for short-term guard positions. It, too, requires that applicants have a license. The license requirement is a big change from the last event on Canadian soil that saw massive deployment of private security.

For the Vancouver Olympics, Contemporary Security landed a $97.4-million contract from the RCMP to provide 5,000 screening staff at and near venues. People came from around the country and the world for the jobs, said Raghavan Balakrishnan of Edmonton, who worked as an X-ray machine operator at a gate near BC Place stadium.

“We had some from Montreal, from Toronto, all the way from Austria and Australia and some from the U.K.,” he said. A week’s training was provided, and Balakrishnan said he did not need any special certifications to land the $16-an-hour post, even though B.C., like Ontario, licenses security guards.

So why is it different for the G8 and G20 summits? Contemporary Security would not say. CBC News attempted to contact several managers at the company and left multiple messages, but nobody responded.

Ontario security guard license

Before 15 April:

• Apply to ministry ($80 fee, includes criminal record check).

After 15 April:

• Take week-long course ($400)
• Write 75-minute multiple-choice test ($60)
• Apply to ministry ($80 fee, includes criminal record check)