2011-04-01 

G8/G20 security firm charged for licence violations

Several violations by firm’s staff: OPP

Ontario Provincial Police have laid charges against a B.C. private security that won a contract to provide screening at the G8 and G20 summits last summer despite allegedly not being properly qualified to do so.

The OPP also alleges Contemporary Security Canada offered to provide security guards to police the meetings in the Toronto area when they were not properly licensed. Licensing is a prerequisite to offering security services under the Private Security and Investigative Services Act.

The company, described on its website as specializing in “delivering world class, end-to-end security screening solutions for large-scale events across Canada,” was licensed June 11, after they secured the contract and only two weeks before the G8 summit in Huntsville got underway.

A posting on the company’s website indicates it had been selected by the RCMP to provide “security screening services” during the summit, and that an estimated 1,100 CSC screeners would be working.

Twelve CSC employees, including security guards, have now been charged with a litany of offences, including working as a security guard without a licence, offering to provide services while not licensed and failure to wear a proper uniform.

The company itself has been charged with:

• Three counts of offering to provide security services while not licensed.
• One count of employing an unlicensed security guard.
• Two counts of failing to ensure that a security guard wears a proper uniform.