What you are actually paying for
in an hourly rate.
Most security quotes are a single number with nothing attached to it. This is what that number has to cover in Ontario, what changes it, and the questions that make two bids comparable.
No rate in Ontario starts
below the law.
Ontario’s general minimum wage rose to $17.95 an hour on 1 October 2026. That is the wage, not the cost of employing somebody.
Whatever is paid to the person standing on your site. A post that has to be filled around the clock is not one wage, it is several, plus the cover for when somebody is sick.
CPP, EI, WSIB and vacation pay are not optional and are not a line item a supplier can choose to skip. They are paid on every hour billed, by law.
Supervision, insurance, uniforms, equipment, scheduling, training on your post orders, and the reporting you receive. A rate that looks unusually low is usually short of one of these.
Ask how they are billed before you sign, not in the first month’s invoice. A 24-hour post over a long weekend is where a quote and a bill tend to part company.
Minimum wage figure from Ontario’s Guide to the Employment Standards Act, effective 1 October 2026. Rates are indexed annually and published on or before 1 April each year.
The rate is visible.
What it buys is not.
A post staffed by whoever is free this week never learns your site. Every new face is re-trained on your post orders at your expense, in time if not in money, and the gaps show up as incidents nobody documented.
It is invisible on a quote and obvious on a site. Ask who checks the post, how often, and what happens when an officer does not show.
When an insurer, a lawyer or a police service asks what happened, the answer is a report and the footage attached to it. A programme that cannot produce that quickly costs more the first time you need it than it saved all year.
Nine questions to ask
whoever is quoting.
Ask every bidder the same nine and the cheapest quote usually stops being the cheapest. Ask us too.
Put those nine to us on a real site and see what the answers look like written down.
(519) 800-3947The minimum the province
requires of a guard.
At least 18 years old and legally entitled to work in Canada.
The mandatory basic training for security guards, and the mandatory test, each producing a completion number submitted with the application.
A Criminal Record and Judicial Matters Check, issued within six months of the application.
It expires two birthdays after the day it is issued, and the guard must carry it — printed or digital — and show it on request. You are entitled to ask.
Requirements as published by the Government of Ontario. Figures circulating elsewhere for a fixed number of mandatory training hours are not stated on that page and are not repeated here.
Hours are not the only answer.
- Licensed Security GuardsWhen somebody has to be physically present on the site.
- Virtual Security GuardsTrained operators watching cameras, at a fraction of a staffed post.
- Mobile Patrol & Alarm ResponseScheduled rounds instead of a post standing all night.
- Property & Facility ManagersOne standard and one rate card across a portfolio.
Common questions.
A comparable quote states the bill rate, what it covers and what it does not: supervision, statutory employer costs, equipment, reporting, and whether overtime, statutory holidays and short-notice cover are billed differently. A single hourly number with none of that attached cannot be compared against another one.
Usually because they are not for the same thing. A lower rate can mean no on-site supervision, no documented reporting, a thinner margin for statutory costs, or a plan to staff the post with whoever is available. The rate is the visible part; what it is buying is the part worth comparing.
Ontario’s general minimum wage is $17.95 per hour as of 1 October 2026, and on top of the wage an employer pays CPP, EI, WSIB and vacation pay. Those are statutory, not optional, so any bill rate has to clear the wage plus those costs before it covers supervision, insurance, equipment or margin.
A licence holder must be at least 18 and legally entitled to work in Canada, complete the mandatory basic training and testing, and pass a Criminal Record and Judicial Matters Check issued within six months of the application. The licence expires two birthdays after it is issued, and the guard must carry it and show it on request.
Often, but they do different jobs. Cameras with trained operators detect, verify, speak over site audio and document, at a fraction of the cost of a staffed post. A licensed officer is what you add when someone has to physically control a gate, check a driver, or be present on a floor. Most sites end up with some of both rather than all of one.
It can, because a stable schedule lets the same officers work the same site, which reduces turnover and the cost of constantly re-training people on your post orders. Ask what changes at each term length rather than assuming a discount exists.
Something not answered here? Ask us directly or call (519) 800-3947.