Security experts say it’s time to update and strength the training required for the more than 150,000 licensed private security guards in Ontario, patrolling shops, restaurants and venues, especially as retail thefts spike.
“Ontario has one licence. And that’s one licence, whether you’re working in a busy retail environment, whether you are working as a door supervisor at a pub or a club, whether you cash in transit, whether you handling jewellery and cash and you’re an armed security guard,” said Ian Messenger, a public safety professor at Seneca College.
Organized retail theft has led to $9 billion in losses across Canada in 2024 alone and security guards are often the first to respond to retail theft incidents. Those costs to retailers often ending up on customer’s bills.
Messenger was a police officer in the UK, where different security guards have different qualifications.
“With a tiered system, this really recognizes that every role is different. Every environment has different risks, requires a different skill set, which is very hard to achieve in a single 40-hour training course,” explained Messenger.
In Ontario, the 40-hour course is mostly online. Aspiring security guards must also have first aid training and write an exam.
The provincial government said its exploring adding a tiered system to the licensing process and Solicitor General Michael Kerzner has promised “modernized training and oversight for security guards.”
But recent public safety legislation doesn’t include any training changes.
“We can have individuals working in frontline security roles who haven’t had training in use of force or de-escalation because it’s not currently part of the 40-hour training,” shared Messenger.
And it is evident. In 2024 and 2025, nearly 300 complaints from the public were filed with Ontario’s private security regulator, a 22 per cent increase over the year before. The most amount of complaints were for code of conduct violations including abusive language and actions.
Equity and business training expert Tomee Sojourner-Campbell said racial profiling by guards is also an issue.
“It’s most recently members of Indigenous communities that have experienced that,” Sojourner-Campbell said. “Most of the cases we don’t hear about are people having the day-to-day experience. And the reality is for many of us who’ve experienced consumer racial profiling, it is a phenomenon that exists in a day-to-day living.”
As a former guard, Sojourner-Campbell said she has been on both sides of discrimination, recalling how her boss would instruct them to watch certain people.
“They would identify a group and say, ‘Watch these students.’ And it often was targeted based on race, based on gender,” she shared.
Sojourner-Campbell said any changes to private guard legislation should involve more education on racial profiling.
“Explicitly name consumer racial profiling and the prevention of consumer racial profiling. And then also ensure that members of the public are well aware of their rights, the complaints mechanisms that are in place,” Sojourner-Campbell explained.
The government has also pledged to increase oversight of security guards to make the system more accountable. In 2024, an online complaints portal was launched where people could track their complaints and any investigations online.
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