Security Guard Companies near you

Ontario's Private Security and Investigative Services Act covers security guards, private investigators, the agencies that sell their services, and businesses that employ in-house security. New guards must complete a basic training course and pass the ministry test before they can be licensed, and a licensed guard must carry the licence while on duty and produce it on request. ServiceOntario publishes a public registry with separate searches for individual licence status, agency licence status and employer registration status, so a buyer can confirm both the company and, if it matters, the people it sends.

British Columbia is administered by the Security Programs Division under the Security Services Act. The Act states that an individual must not engage in security work unless the individual holds a valid security worker licence for that kind of work, that a person must not carry on a security business without a valid security business licence, and that a licensed business must not employ or engage an individual for any kind of security work unless that individual holds the corresponding worker licence. Licence categories include security guard services, armoured car guards, alarm services, locksmiths, private investigators and security consultants, and the province provides an online licence status check.

In Quebec, the Bureau de la sécurité privée administers the Private Security Act across six activity categories, guarding among them. Anyone operating a private security business in Quebec must hold an agency permit from the Bureau, and individuals must hold an agent permit; the Bureau maintains a public register of permit holders. Other provinces run their own regimes with their own statutes, training requirements and registries, so confirm the rule in the province where the guards will actually work rather than assuming one province's process applies everywhere.

This is the part buyers most often get wrong. A security guard licence is permission to work in the industry. It does not confer police powers, and it does not create any authority to detain, search or use force beyond what any other person has. A guard's ability to arrest comes from the Criminal Code, not from the licence.

Section 494 of the Criminal Code sets out arrest without warrant by any person. It allows any person to arrest without warrant someone they find committing an indictable offence, and allows the owner of property, or a person authorized by the owner, to arrest without warrant a person found committing a criminal offence on or in relation to that property, subject to the limits the section sets. Critically, subsection 494(3) provides that anyone other than a peace officer who arrests a person without warrant shall forthwith deliver that person to a peace officer. A guard cannot hold someone indefinitely, run their own investigation, or treat a back office as a detention room.

Ontario's rules of conduct reinforce the boundary from the other direction. A licensed guard must not hold themselves out as police: the regulation prohibits using terms such as police, law enforcement, special constable, officer, detective or private detective to describe themselves, and uniform rules bar police-style elements such as rank chevrons and forage caps. Guards on bodyguard, loss prevention or undercover assignments may work in plain clothes but must still produce the licence when asked. If a company's sales pitch suggests its guards can do more than this, that is a reason to look harder, not a selling point.

The document that makes a guarding contract work is the post order: the written instruction set for your specific site saying what the guard does on arrival, what the patrol route and timing are, which doors and areas are checked, who is allowed in and how that is verified, and precisely what to do for each foreseeable incident, including the point at which police are called instead of handled internally. Generic post orders are a sign the company has not actually assessed your site.

Reporting is the other half. Agree what is logged, in what form, and how quickly you see it: routine patrol logs, incident reports, and immediate notification for anything serious. Ontario requires licensed agencies to keep the records listed in the recordkeeping regulation for business entities for a set retention period, with longer retention where legal proceedings are underway, so ask how incident records are stored and how you obtain a copy if an incident becomes a claim or a prosecution.

Supervision deserves a direct question because it is where price differences usually hide. Ask how many sites one supervisor covers, whether guards are checked in person or only by an app, and what happens when a guard does not show. Coverage gaps on overnight posts are the most common complaint in this service, and they are a scheduling and supervision problem rather than a licensing one.

A contract agency is the usual answer for variable or overnight coverage. It carries the recruitment, licensing, scheduling, uniforms and cover for absence, and it can surge for an event or shrink when a construction phase ends. You are buying a service and managing it through post orders, reports and a named supervisor.

Employing guards directly gives you continuity, people who know the building and its regulars, and direct control of standards. It also moves the compliance onto you: your staff still need their individual licences, and in Ontario an employer that directly employs in-house guards without selling those services must register with the ministry. That registration is itself searchable in the ServiceOntario registry.

On LokalMatch, a business describes the site, the hours that need covering, whether the post is static, mobile or event-based, and any specific requirements such as concierge duties or alarm response, and security guard companies working in that city respond directly. LokalMatch does not verify licences or vet guards, so use the provincial registry yourself: the whole point of a public register is that a buyer can confirm a company's standing in a couple of minutes before any contract is signed.