§01Start with licensing, not price.
Provincial licensing is the floor. Every officer on your site must hold a valid PSISA (Ontario), BSP (Quebec), BST (BC), or provincial equivalent — verified, not claimed. Ask the vendor for a redacted sample of their internal licence audit log. If they don't have one, they aren't auditing.
§02Read the SOP before you read the price.
A meaningful proposal contains a site-specific Standard Operating Procedure — post orders, escalation ladder, dress code, reporting cadence. If the vendor sends a rate sheet and a boilerplate SOP, you're being sold headcount, not security.
§03Insurance and WSIB / WCB compliance.
$5M is the old floor; $10–25M General Liability is the modern default. Request the certificate of insurance and validate on the provincial WSIB/WCB portal — clearance certificate should be current and not conditional.
§04Reporting cadence and portal.
Ask to see a live occurrence-report portal. Daily reports should hit your inbox before 06:00. Monthly summaries should include incident category breakdowns, response times, and shift-coverage percentages — the KPIs your board will ask about.
§05Officer rotation and consistency.
The single strongest predictor of long-term site quality is officer stability. Vendors churning officers below 12 months' average tenure will churn on your site too. Ask.
§06Escalation and backup.
What happens if the officer doesn't show up? Ask for the backup dispatch process — dispatch centre address, supervisor rotation, SLA on replacement.
§07References that operate the same portfolio type.
Retail references for retail work. Class-A commercial references for tower work. Not a mixed reel.
§08The exit clause.
Contracts should include 30-day termination for cause and 60-day termination for convenience. Anything longer is written for the vendor's protection, not yours.