The National Pardon Centre™

The past few days have brought about a lot of packing and unpacking and some very exciting changes for the National Pardon Centre.

After months of planning, training and coordinating, we are extremely pleased to announce that our Toronto office is officially open for business and accepting walk-in clients!! Located in suite # 1503 at 2 Carlton Street (near College and Yonge),and offering fingerprinting and free in-person consultations, this new regional office will allow us to better serve not only those clients living in the GTA but throughout all of Ontario. I will also take this opportunity to extend a very warm welcome to Laura Hippensteel, who will be heading up the Toronto office, and her team.

Our Calgary office also finds itself in a new space. After nearly 5 years on the 15th floor of the Northland Building, we decided it was time for a change of scenery and moved to suite 1100 on the 11th floor of the same building. Truth be told, our old office was simply too big. We had more square footage than we knew what to do with. We now find ourselves in cozier and sunnier quarters and, after a couple of busy moving days, are fully operational and very happy with the change! As always, we are here to answer your questions from Monday to Friday, between 8:30 and 5:00, no appointment needed.

I sometimes get calls from concerned clients wondering why they haven’t heard from us in a couple of months. The straight answer is that we probably don’t have much news. The courts, police, and Parole Board can all take a long time to send us the information that we need to move forward with a file. The reality of working in a pardon office is that we spend a LOT of time chasing after other organizations to send us what we need so that we can do our jobs.

Some clients have suggested that they would like a courtesy call every couple of weeks just to touch base and keep them in the loop regarding progress on their file. While we certainly try to accommodate this as much of possible please keep in mind that we currently have over 7000 clients. If we were to call every client every couple of weeks, that would mean making over 14 000 phone calls per month! As a small non-profit organization, there is just no way that our current staff can handle that number of calls in addition to the calls that we already field. We could, of course, hire more staff but that would mean raising our prices and I’m sure you’ll agree that no one wants that!

We do understand that you have an absolute right to know that your application is being administered professionally and expediently. This is why we have invested in a phone system that allows you to speak with a counselor in our Calgary office if no one is available to answer the phone in our Montreal office and vice-versa. We offer a toll-free number and, on the off chance that you do have to leave a voicemail or send an email, we will respond to them quickly – normally within an hour or 2. If this is not enough, then of course you can also ask that we contact you as soon as we have any news regarding the status of your application.

At the end of the day, I just want our clients to know that when it comes to pardons, no news is essentially good news. We will always contact you immediately if there is any sort of concern with your application and we are always happy to talk if you call us to find out about the status of your file.

I receive a considerable number of calls from people who have status under the Indian Act wondering about what this means in terms of US entry privileges. The simple answer is that holding a Status Card does NOT entitle you to cross the border if you are otherwise inadmissible.

I think the confusion lies in that a Status Card used to be accepted as a valid travel document (just as a driver’s license used to be all you needed to cross the border). Some Ports of Entry will still accept a Status Card but as of 2011 no exceptions will be made and you will need to present a Secure Certificate of Indian Status in order to be allowed into the US. A Secure Certificate of Indian Status replaces a passport but just as a passport would not give me the right to cross the border if I had a criminal record, a US border guard will still refuse you entry if you only present a SCIS and you have a history of criminal convictions.

That being said, the Jay Treaty of 1794 does acknowledge certain travel rights for First Peoples. Essentially, you must be able to satisfy a 50% blood quantum requirement in order to be entitled to cross the border regardless of your criminal history. You should present an official letter from your First Nation or Band or Tribe detailing your ancestry so that the admitting customs officer can determine that you have at least 50% indigenous blood. If you can provide that letter, then you should be able to travel across the border without any trouble, even if you have a serious criminal record. If you cannot obtain such a letter (or if you have less than 50% indigenous blood) then you have no choice but to apply for an Entry Waiver if you wish to cross the border.

Please feel free to contact me personally if you have specific questions about your case.

Hi Everyone,

By now you have probably heard that the Harper government pushed through Bill C-23A last week. And while the law has yet to receive Royal Assent, it is more or less a certainty that the pardon system will see some major changes. Understandably you will want to know how these changes will affect you.

The new law is complex, but I will simplify the main points as best as I can.

If there is one piece of good news it is that if your pardon is already being reviewed by the Parole Board at the time that the new law takes effect, it will be evaluated under the old eligibility guidelines.

Anyone whose application has not yet been received by the Board will be subject to the following rules:

Sexual Offences: Anyone with a conviction for an indictable sexual offence now has to wait 10 years from the completion of their sentence before they become eligible to apply for a pardon. Anyone with a summary sexual offence on their record must now wait 5 years. We have to contact the courts to confirm that an offence was indictable but as a rule only VERY minor offences are summary.

Violent Offences: If you were sentenced to serve a jail term of 2 years or more for a violent indictable offence, you will now have to wait 10 years from the completion of your sentence before you become eligible for your pardon. This also applies to offences where the threat of violence was used or where the victim was likely to experience “severe psychological damage”.

In order to clarify here are some examples:

EXAMPLE: Pauline has an indictable aggravated assault conviction and was given a 3 year jail sentence. She has to wait 10 years from the date that her sentence ended before she can apply for her pardon.

EXAMPLE: Richard has an indictable aggravated assault conviction and was given a 1 year jail sentence. He only has a 5 year waiting period.

EXAMPLE: Nathan has an indictable sexual assault conviction and was sentenced to 6 months in jail. He will have to wait 10 years before becoming eligible for his pardon.

EXAMPLE: Beth has a summary sexual assault conviction and was placed on probation for 2 years. She now has to wait 5 years before she becomes eligible.

The Parole Board has also been given the right to refuse to grant a pardon if doing so would “bring the administration of justice into disrepute.” This is the clause that the government included to prevent Karla Homolka from getting her pardon. I think that the Board will be very careful in exercising this power and that this new provision should NOT affect the vast majority of pardon applicants. However, we will have to see how this plays itself out.

The law is obviously more complicated than what I have outlined above. If you have any doubts about your eligibility, then please contact a counselor at the National Pardon Centre so that we can discuss your case with you.

If these changes have affected you or someone you know, you should write to your Member of Parliament and tell your story. Find out who your MP is by clicking here:

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/parlinfo/compilations/houseofcommons/memberbypostalcode.aspx?menu=hoc