Earlier this month, the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce honoured Western Canada Security with one of a dozen awards handed out during a standing-room-only ceremony at our local conference centre. We proudly took the stage alongside other celebrated Vancouver Island organizations like Brentwood Bay Resort, KWENCH Coworking, Rifflandia Festival, Schneider Electric, Victoria Brain Injury Society, and the Victoria Native Friendship Centre. That’s esteemed company to keep, no doubt about it.
In terms of social good or innovative technology, the ceremony’s finalists and award-winners drive our region forward into a bright future. Our own work in protection services can look relatively traditional and straightforward by comparison. But we have earned widespread recognition for our fresh perspective on security, our community involvement, and our human-powered implementation of the latest technology. In this month’s blog post, we take a look back at how we got here.
Internal strength
When Western Canada Security launched at the start of 2022, “convergence” was the hot topic in our industry. The term refers to the long-overdue integration of smart systems and physical security. While established businesses scrambled to connect cameras and panels to the work of physical guards, we took a holistic approach from day one. Our full-scope offerings were never siloed, so our clients benefit from a complete security ecosystem with strategy, systems, and personnel fully integrated.
Seamless, full-scope delivery is matched by a full-service mentality. That means we organize security plans and their provisions around the needs, budgets, and preferences of each client we protect. We find a way to answer every call for support that we receive, because enhancing public safety is at the core of our mission.
Over the last five years, large companies struggling to pivot toward convergence also had to adapt to new societal expectations around diversity and inclusion. Once again, Western Canada Security has been ahead of the curve right from the beginning. Our company was founded by a new Canadian originally from the contested Punjab region. And many other new arrivals (including a notably high percentage of women) filled the ranks of guards and patrollers.
In our experience, immigrant Security Officers are hardworking, honest, reliable people. We are grateful to all of them for their service to Vancouver Islanders, for their contributions to our local company’s global culture. That appreciation is realized through additional training options; flexible scheduling; immigration support; and guidance on housing, taxes, and other complexities in resettlement. We know that Western Canada Security will thrive if our people are able to excel in both at work and home.
A Constellation of Networks
If it takes a village to raise a child, one must have city-wide backing to nurture a new business in urban protection services.
During our first year, the Victoria Chamber gave us a major boost. Its informative sessions and regular mixers provided invaluable exposure to the regional commercial sector. Active participation also gave us the chance to pitch, pitch, pitch our services. It was our Victoria chamber membership that allowed us to implement an enterprise-level group benefit plan and other first-rate professional services that would have been out of reach without the collective strength of the organization’s 1400+ local members.
Other regional Chamber memberships came into play as our services spread across southern Vancouver Island: Esquimalt, Saanich Peninsula, and the Westshore. We’re now in the process of joining the Sooke, Duncan, and Nanaimo Chambers as our reach increases. These groups – along with Think Local First, the Better Business Bureau, and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business – let us engage broadly with security insiders and non-security companies.
Thanks to those various involvements, we now feel fully integrated into the regional economy. From that position we can select well-aligned partners and identify beneficiaries of our charitable giving program. The focus for 2025 has been the twenty-five million dollar revamp of the Shawnigan Lake Easter Seals camp. Our President joined the fundraising cabinet for this project earlier this year, bringing to the table the perspective that accessibility is security.
Excellence without Borders
Vancouver-Island-based business organizations and charitable initiatives have helped us evolve. We now understand better why hiring a local security company matters and what corporate responsibility really means. Along the way, important vendors, customers, and peers in the region found us as much as we found them. But an ambitious company like ours needs to look further afield as well.
We’ve seen accelerated growth thanks in no small part to our active role in the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS). This professional association has seemingly endless resources for updated insights, professional development, and certification programs for dozens of specialized skillsets.
Western Canada Security has brought board members from ASIS to Victoria, and those trips have become an exciting cross-border exchange of ideas. The outside presence elevates our local security landscape with exposure to the latest trends and threats shaping international security. Conversely, we want to put our region on the global map for protection professionals. Here on Vancouver Island, we can sometimes lag behind when it comes to technology. But our social philosophy in this part of the world sets a strong example that other countries and even other parts of Canada can learn from.
Membership in ASIS has exposed us to international security conferences like Global Security Exchange and ISC West. These take place on American soil, but a highlight for us is to attend Canada Night, a grand tradition at both of these annual events.
International groups and gatherings help us to introduce the Western Canada Security way of doing things to a high-level, cross-border audience.
Simultaneously, we gain direct access to the brightest minds in the business. Our leadership team has a lot of respect for senior professionals in the industry, those who paved the way. Conferring with peers at international conferences can be another valuable opportunity – as long as we see each other as a source of inspiration, insight, and support instead of just competitors. With that contemporary attitude on display, we find many doors are already open before we go to knock.
The story of our success is the story of a small-but-mighty company that never had to play catch up with contemporary trends. Launched in the 2020s – amid the confusion of Covid lockdowns and the birth of generative AI – we started by meeting new challenges around public safety with the highest possible standards and the latest tools at our disposal. That short-yet-turbulent history has positioned us to innovate and excel in a time-tested industry that is ready for significant disruption.
Our goal is to be a point of confluence for non-security businesses to learn about smart security, which is by necessity human-powered, protocol-driven, and tech-protected. At the same time, we think that our holistic approach to building out a security ecosystem (not just a siloed setup) can influence industry peers. People expect to gain more from digital tools in the wake of accelerating innovation, while advanced tools should always be deployed to raise standards and increase safety for security personnel.
Seeing our ambitious goals come to fruition (especially in just a few short years) gives us great confidence. It gives us the confidence to feel that our June 2025 award is not just a win for our local team but, going much further, a win for the worldwide security industry. We are honoured to play our small part.