Every one of these can be answered in a single email by an agency that has its house in order. Send them all nine at once and see what comes back — and how fast.
1. What is your Ontario security agency licence number?
Not the guards' licences — the company's. A business cannot lawfully supply security guards in Ontario without an agency licence, and plenty of operations in this city are effectively brokers with no licence of their own. Ask for the number, then check it. If the answer is vague, stop there.
2. Will it be the same officers every week?
The answer separates two business models. Agencies that staff from a pool will tell you "we guarantee trained officers", which is not the same thing. You want names, and you want the same names, because a guard who knows your regulars is a completely different asset from one who does not.
3. Who is my named lead, and can I have their mobile number?
A phone number for a person beats a dispatch line for an operator. When a situation is developing at 23:40 you do not want to explain your venue's layout to somebody who has never been in it.
4. Can I see a $5M certificate of insurance and a WSIB clearance certificate?
Both should arrive as attachments within the hour. Your landlord, your insurer and in some cases your licence conditions will want them anyway. An agency that has to "look into that" is telling you something.
5. Do you subcontract?
If the answer is yes, ask who to and whether those officers are covered by the same insurance. Subcontracting is how a client ends up with an unvetted stranger at their door and an unanswerable question about liability when something happens.
6. What do your post orders look like?
Ask to see a sample. Post orders should specify each position, what that officer does, what they explicitly do not do, the escalation path, and the point at which police or EMS are called. If an agency does not write post orders, every officer is improvising your liability.
7. When do I get the incident report?
The correct answer is "before we leave your building". Not next day, not on request. A report written the following afternoon is a reconstruction; a report written at 03:05 is evidence. Ask for a redacted sample so you can see the standard.
8. What training do your officers have beyond the licence?
The Ontario licence requires 40 hours of ministry-approved training, a provincial exam, a Criminal Record and Judicial Matters Check and emergency first aid. That is the floor. Ask what sits on top: de-escalation refreshers, use-of-force refreshers, naloxone, Standard First Aid and CPR-C, and how often each is renewed.
9. What would make you turn down a job?
This is the question that tells you the most and the one nobody expects. An agency with standards has a ready answer — unlawful work, intimidation dressed up as security, clients who want presence in order to start something. An agency that has never considered the question will say something like "we're pretty flexible", which is exactly what you do not want at your door.
The nine answers matter less than how long they take. A serious agency has all of this in a folder and sends it the same day.
What to do with the answers
Put them side by side. You will usually find that the cheapest quote is missing three or four of the underlying items entirely — which means it is not the cheapest quote for the same thing, it is a quote for a different and much thinner thing.
Then do one more step that almost nobody does: ask for a walk-through before you commit. Twenty minutes in your room tells you more about how an agency thinks than any document. Watch whether they look at your exits, ask about your regulars, and notice the corner your cameras do not cover.
Swarm Protective Services staffs licensed venues, events and protection details across the Greater Toronto Area. Dispatch is answered 24 hours on (416) 938-4766.
