O.P.P.  The History of the Ontario Provincial Police Force

by Dahn D. Higley

Published by The Queen’s Printer, Toronto, 1984

Excerpt from Chapter 2 – Pages 259-260

To further protect Ontario from any enemy action, a Civilian Defence Committee was established by the province in 1940 in cooperation with the federal government and was intended to set up Air Raid Precaution (ARP) procedures.  The committee was chaired by Attorney General Gordon D. Conant, KC, and included Deputy Commissioner McCready as vice chairman and director of police services.  One object of the committee was to create a volunteer civilian organization to support and assist the civil police in protecting lives and property and combating any subversive developments.  Municipalities were invited to raise volunteer units to be trained, supervised, and eventually armed by provincial authorities. 

Thus, the Volunteer Civil Guard came into being, and within a few months, the strength of the organization numbered nearly forty thousand persons mustered in two hundred separate units in various municipalities.  Although the guards were provided only with blue armbands, lettered “Volunteer Civil Guard” in red, the commissioner of the provincial police reported in 1940 that “at some inspections, the rank and file turned out in uniforms purchased by themselves, and in many instances provided their own armbands.”  The volunteer officers commanding the Guard were made honorary members of the Ontario Provincial Police Reserve, and the Volunteer Civil Guard was seen as an auxiliary of the provincial police.  To provide the volunteers with weapons, the Province of Ontario appealed publicly on August 6, 1940, for the loan of rifles and 12-guage shotguns.

Province for Ontario – AN APPEAL FOR ARMS

http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/publications/AppealforArmsAugust6,1940.pdf