Toronto - Who is Contemporary Security Canada and how did they get $100's of millions of G8/20 security contracts after forgetting to obtain an Ontario License to operate?
More importantly, why did their application for a license, which would normally take up tp 6 months to process, only take 4 days?
Contemporary Security Canada or CSC is a private security company headquartered in Kansas with offices in Vancouver and now Toronto.
Apart from partners Aeroguard (airport security) and parent company Contemporary International, very little is known about the company that received a $94.2 million contract to do security for the Vancouver Olympic games.
A quick internet search reveals little about the company that doesn't relate to it's Vancouver, and now G8/20 Toronto, contracts.
Press releases by the company itself paint a picture of a small start up security firm growing slowly from security sports contracts to the major security endeavors for the Olympics.
There's nothing about them in the Toronto Business Directory. Nothing about them on Hoover (a large business directory. Nothing about them in deep google searches, nothing about them in google scholar. After a couple of fruitless hours, their business board at one time is found to be Claudio Beretta, David Churches, Abraham Kumar, Stephen V. Mirabile, Ioannis Pappas, Todd Severon and Damon Zumwalt.
But nothing on them besides CSC stuff sticks out either.
Where did they come from and how did they land the two fatest security contracts in Canada's history? Maybe just a conspiracy theory at work, slowly being put to bed? Maybe not.
When a small press release in Canadian Security Magazine opened with, according to Peter Alexander, Certified Fraud Examiner and Certified Protected Professional, "a matter-of-fact announcement with no byline," the amount of the contract CSC received for the G8/20 was not known.
Speaking in the Toronto Star Ross McLeod, President of the Association of Professional Security Agencies, says only that would much more than the amount for the Olympics.
Other security firms chimed in when it was found out that shockingly, CSC didn't even have a license in Ontario. A license is needed to operate according to Laura Blondeau, spokesperson for the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services.
While CSC was able to get a fast-track license in 4 days, other industry officials have been openly suspicious.
According to Alexander, "Let’s be clear – in a normal tendering process," a process which can take up to 6 months with several intense steps, "the fact that they’re unlicensed would disqualify their bid."
Mcleod raised another concern: why was the tender for the bid (what governments have to do to attract the cheapest and best suited price) only left up for 7 days? Paul Carson, president of the ASG Security Group says these complex contracts should take weeks in a blog-interview for Private Officer News Network.
In the same interview, Sergeant Leo Monbourquette of the G20 Integrated Security Unit was asked what would happen if the company did not get a license?
"“I don’t know if there’s a plan B. All the information I have is that they will be,” he said.
With files from privateofficernews.wordpress.com and pfalex.wordpress.com
Curious as to why tens of thousands are protesting the G8/G20 summits? Go to 2010.mediacoop.ca for up to the minute G20 and G8 Summit Protest Reporting, straight 'outta the Alternative Media Centre!
