New law result of thief killed by grocery store security guards

BY MAREK KRASUSKI

New legislation effective Aug. 23 will require people working in the security industry to have standardized training.

An information session on Bill 159 was held at the Radisson Hotel Monday for business owners and managers to inform them of the changes to the law that call for heightened levels of training and standards of care for security guards, bouncers, bodyguards and others dealing with security matters.

Bill 159, which will replace the Private Investigators and Security Guards Act, will affect far more than the 32,000 security guards now operating in the province. Doormen, concierges, locksmiths and investigators obliged to undergo training will swell these numbers to over 80,000 workers.

Traditionally, security training has been piecemeal at best, lacking any form of consistent, provincially sanctioned training.

But this is about to change once regulatory reforms become law. The new standardized curriculum, which will borrow heavily from police programs, is based on 56 hours of training sanctioned by the Ministry of Public Safety and Community Services, also responsible for policing and corrections instruction in the province.

The absence of consistent and well-defined standards of care governing the security industry has been a long-standing concern, suggests Steve Summerville, vice president of program delivery for MKD Security Awareness and Training Inc.

“Currently there is no standard required to be a security guard in the province of Ontario.  The only existing requirement is a criminal background check,” he said.

A former staff sergeant for the Toronto Police Services, Summervile is now a professional security trainer.

He also testified at a coroner’s inquest in a landmark case that opened a Pandora’s box of demands for robust and systemic training.

In 1999 Patrick Shand of Toronto was pursued by security officials after stealing baby food from a Loblaws’ store. A struggle ensued. Shand was brought to the ground by security staff and subsequently suffocated to death. No wrongdoing was attributed to security personnel, but the investigation did lead to the issue of “reasonable expectations of what security should and should not do,” Summerville explained.

Reaction to the curriculum, scheduled to begin next year once changes can be uniformly applied, covers the  spectrum from those advancing a higher level of professionalism to others content with the status quo.

Carter Oborne, president of Ombrello Security and Investigation Services Inc., welcomes the change.

“I support it completely,” he says, adding that the “legislative compliance brings out a sense of professionalism which so far is noticeable mainly at the levels of city and provincial police.”

Others, he admits, are less sanguine about the changes.

 “Some long time security people believe there is no real necessity for this change.”

University of Toronto educators are currently shaping the pedagogical design of the curriculum. Community colleges will deliver program content.

The private security industry has experienced dramatic growth in the past 35 years in Ontario.