Right to refuse work
An aspect of the legislation, which will undoubtedly have a major impact on security guards in the private sector, is the change it makes to the work refusal provisions in Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act, which allows workers the right to refuse unsafe work. 

The general workplace refusal provision in the province’s occupational health and safety legislation is “very narrow” because workers can only refuse unsafe work if “it’s made unsafe by some physical environmental condition” and until now, the Ministry of Labour has taken the position that this does not cover workplace violence, Robertson says.

However, Bill 168 expressly says workers have a right to refuse work if they believe they would likely be endangered by workplace violence, making Ontario the first province to have written such provision in the workplace violence legislation, he says.

According to Robertson, this provision “raises enormous potential ramifications” for the security industry.

“There’s an argument for saying that hundreds, if not thousands of the 65,000 licensed security guards and private investigators in Ontario would start using their right to refuse unsafe work if they were to learn about their legal right to do so," he says.

The arrival of this legislation, the publicity surrounding it and this right to refuse work provision “will be a vehicle by which Ministry of Labour inspectors are attracted like flies to security operations,” Robertson says.

Once the Ministry of Labour inspector arrives, then the employer will have to deal with the problem posed by workplace violence because the inspector will issue an order to him or her to provide protections, such as protective vests and batons, he explains.

Bonsu also believes that if security employers know their employees have the right to refuse work under these circumstances then they will be more inclined to provide the required training.     

However, he says that while the right will have a positive impact on workers, the government needs to educate them on how to use this right accordingly.

According to Edwards, if a security guard in the private sector refuses to work because of “likely endangerment” this will be “problematic” because it could cause an investigation, and the security guard could leave the work location.

Parker says the idea of the right to refuse work based on the possibility of violence is a good one in theory and “may work if the officer is informed of the potential for violence before attending the scene,” allowing him or her to make an informed decision.

However, “the problem arises when security receives a call to attend a location with little or no information, only to discover that the situation is violent or about to turn violent,” he says.

Since violence is “spontaneous and erupts with very little warning” in many situations, walking away from this kind of situation would be difficult, he says.

“Employers of security need to take a long look at the realities of providing effective security for both its employees and the public,” Parker says.