Staff Reporter
I drop by the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services with a passport photo in hand. I complete an application form to be a security guard at a cost of $80. The clerk asks if I'd also like my private investigator's licence. I ask what's the catch? They say another $80.
"No training?" I ask.
"Just $80."
I give the province my Visa number and permission to check if I have a criminal record.
Two weeks later, my security guard and private investigator's licence appears in my mailbox.
I'm now fully licensed for two jobs I have no idea how to perform.
I'm not the only one. The Ontario government has not come through on a four-year-old promise to institute training as a condition of licensing.
The McGuinty Liberals passed the Private Security and Investigative Services Act in 2005. It went into effect in 2007, setting an Aug. 23, 2008 deadline for thousands of unlicensed security guards, bouncers and private investigators to get licensed. A 40-hour training program was proposed.
Poorly trained Ontario guards have been linked to at least two violent deaths in the last decade, the first of which prompted the training plan.
Ten years ago, Patrick Shand was wrestled to the ground by guards at a Toronto grocery store after allegedly stealing baby formula. He died of asphyxiation after he was handcuffed and kept face-down in a parking lot by his untrained captors.
In 2004, a coroner's inquest into Shand's death recommended all in-house security guards, bouncers and private investigators in Ontario be licensed and receive mandatory training in areas such as first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and the use of force.
"It is important that the government act quickly, responsibly and diligently," the inquest concluded.
In May 2008, Jon Herberman, registrar/director of the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services' private security and investigative services branch, released 41 pages of curriculum for a security guard training course. It includes four hours of use-of-force training and six-and-a-half hours of CPR training.
In June 2008, a Hamilton man died while being pinned to the ground by a security guard and store employees who were stopping the expectant father after he was suspected of stealing a $15 radiator hose from a Canadian Tire.
At that time, Herberman defended the province's pace on rolling out mandatory training. "We don't have a firm date at the moment but I trust that within a year, all of the testing infrastructure will be set up across the province," he said.
He now refuses to comment on a time frame, but insists the province is "near" to enforcing training.
In the meantime, I – like thousands of untrained guards with no clue about use of force, absolutely no idea how to implement first aid or CPR and none of the other basic training deemed necessary to safeguard lives – can meet the licensing requirements.
Despite the alarming nature of my government-approved inabilities, Herberman says we should be impressed by the number of licences his office has doled out.
"The numbers are very impressive," he says. "At the time that the new act was proclaimed two years ago, we had 32,000 licensed security guards and private investigators in Ontario. As of today we have just over 65,000 ."
With licensees paying $80 per licence per year, the province has made at least $5 million from investigators and guards since August 2008. Herberman's office works with seven investigators to ensure all security guards are licensed.
Though he's quick to point out that no one in the province is actually legally certified to teach his curriculum, he acknowledges that that hasn't stopped a number of illegitimate training academies from taking hundreds of dollars from would-be guards across the GTA in exchange for unapproved and unregulated training courses.
But he says he's unsure whether he has the authority to crack down on them.
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