The National Pardon Centre™

Proscrastinators. I have never understood them. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I used to BE one up until my first year of University when I quickly realized that leaving things to the last minute would probably result in me eventually flunking out of school. So I cleaned up my act and learned how to get things done on time. Especially the things that I most dread doing. The most unpleasant tasks are probably the ones that should be accomplished first.

Listen, I’m not here to judge or to act all high and mighty. I realize that we all have flaws and that sometimes life events occur that require immediate attention and that we all have different priorities. However, my priority, between the hours of 8:30 and 5:00, is getting people their pardons and waivers. My job is to ensure that my staff administers client files as quickly as possible. But sometimes my staff can’t move forward on a file without a little cooperation from the applicant. And so it is that clients have our somewhat insistent emails and phone calls to look forward to on a monthly basis.

The fact is: there are consequences to not getting a file together in a timely fashion. Aside from the obvious problems of having to wait longer for a pardon, clients also need to consider that certain documents in a file are time-sensitive and can expire. I have one client whose Local Police Check was completed June 28th, 2010. Local Police Checks are valid for 6 months only. I have been calling my client once a month since July to see if he has been able to track down his previous addresses since and today, he finally sent them to me. Unfortunately, there is no way that I can get his application to the Parole Board before the 28th of November (6 months from the date this Police Check was completed)and so his Police Check is going to expire and will have to be re-done, resulting in a further delay in this poor guy’s file.

Another thing to consider is that the pardon program itself could transform in the future. Just as July 2010 unexpectedly saw some major changes to pardon eligibility procedures, we have no way of knowing what variations may or may not be implemented in the coming years. Just because you are eligible for a pardon today does not mean that you necessarily will be 6 month from now. I don’t say this to scare people, just something to keep in mind.

At the end of the day, we are here to help you and we truly do have your best interests at heart. If you are having trouble with something, let us know! We may be able to offer some good suggestions that will ultimately help you to get your pardon faster!

A discussion on discharges is, I feel, warranted as they seem to be the source of much confusion for a lot of people. A discharge is a finding of guilt but is not the same as a conviction in that it only stays on a person’s criminal record for a certain period of time.

To begin, there are 2 types of discharge: conditional and absolute. A conditional discharge will appear on a person’s federal criminal record for a period of 3 years while an absolute discharge stays with a person for one year from the date that it was ordered. Conditional discharges require that the offender meet certain requirements otherwise the discharge may be rescinded in favour of an actual conviction.

Today, discharges are purged automatically from the RCMP system after the required waiting period has expired but prior to July of 1992, offenders actually had to submit a purge request to the RCMP to have their discharge removed from their criminal record. If you received a discharge prior to July 1992, your discharge is still showing on CPIC and anyone performing a background check on you will see it (including US Customs and Border Protection). Remember that a discharge is still a guilty finding and as such you may be refused entry to the United States and told to apply for a waiver if it is still on your record.

People who received discharges after 1992 are not totally in the clear, however. I have had numerous files across my desk where, due to either court or RCMP error, a discharge was showing up as a conviction on a person’s criminal record and was never purged when it should have been. The lesson is that you should never take anything for granted and always verify that your discharge was properly purged. One really good way of doing this is by having a set of fingerprints certified. This is the only sure way of knowing exactly what your criminal record contains.

Keep in mind that a discharge is not only held at the national level on CPIC. The arresting police and the courts also hold records of the discharge. It is very important to apply to have these records destroyed (especially in Quebec where courts allow the general public to search their system) if you want to be sure to remove all traces of your past indiscretion and to prevent the discharge from showing up on local police indices checks.

I hope I have clarified the issue somewhat here but if anyone has any additional questions please feel free to get in touch with me personally at 1-866-242-2411!

Without fail, whenever I explain what I do to a new acquaintance, I am met with wide eyes and questions about what it is like to deal with criminals all day long and “do you ever fear for your safety”? I can’t help but laugh at this type of response as it really just goes to show how sensationalized the whole pardon issue has become. The media latches on to stories about the Karla Homolkas of the world and leads the public to believe that the pardon world is far more outrageous than it actually is. To be honest, I think I dealt with more sinister characters on a daily basis when I worked at a restaurant while completing my undergraduate degree!

The fact is that the vast majority of our clients are perfectly ordinary, perfectly nice, people who exercised poor judgment at some point in the past. Take, for example, one client that we will call “Andrea”. She is very successful in the world of finance and who cannot take her children to Disney World because she admitted to Customs Officers that she had tried smoking pot once in college 20 years ago. This lady was never even charged with an offence and has never had any sort of negative interaction with the police and yet, because she was honest with Border Officials, finds herself in need of our waiver services. Andrea has now submitted her completed application to Homeland Security, a positive response is anticipated and her children can’t wait to meet Mickey!

Mark (again, not his real name) provides another instance of a good person who found himself with a criminal record. 10 years ago, he was a varsity athlete out celebrating with his teammates following a big win. The boys all had a little too much to drink so paid their tab and decided to leave the bar. Mark decided to try to sneak out with his half-finished pitcher of beer. He was quickly apprehended by pub security who called the police. He was formerly charged and later convicted of theft (of the pitcher). Today, Mark owns a successful business and has a 3 year old son who he hopes will love hockey as much as he does. Mark also realizes that his theft conviction will probably prevent him from volunteering with his son’s hockey team and so he has asked us to help him apply for his pardon. Fortunately, the Canadian Government recognizes that people like Mark make mistakes and that they deserve a second chance.

And finally there is a gentleman we will call Rob who is currently training to get his HVAC journeyman status. A few years ago, Rob got a little too enthusiastic at a football game and, at the urging of his buddies, decided to streak across the field. He was tackled by police within about 15 seconds and found himself charged with indecent exposure, a sexual offence. Rob’s career is now on the line because he needs to be bondable and his record is creating a barrier to that. We are doing everything in our power to secure his pardon before he finishes school.

I could go on with literally dozens of similar examples but I hope this is enough to reassure everyone that our clients are generally good, normal folks who got themselves into trouble at some point in their lives but who are in no way a threat to society anymore. I am proud to say that we can help people such as the ones mentioned above move forward with their lives.

I want to make one thing clear once and for all: Court-ordered fines and surcharges do not “go away.” Ever.

There seems to be a common misconception that the courts will track a person down and force them to pay outstanding amounts. This is completely FALSE. The court has no obligation to chase after a person who has been given a fine, restitution, compensation order, or surcharge in conjunction with a criminal conviction. On the day that you were sentenced, you (or your lawyer) were given a document that instructed you how to pay your debt to the courts. That was your official notice and is sometimes the only warning a person will receive. Some courts do send out reminders but many do not. And even those courts that do send out notices will eventually give up on a person. They call it “writing off” a fine. This only means that the court has decided that it has better things to do than to chase after you. It does not negate the fact that you were ordered to pay the fine in the first place.

Perhaps the confusion lies in that sentencing documents often iterate that failure to pay a fine will result in serving a certain number of days in jail. The fact is that this very rarely happens. The police cannot see whether a criminal fine has been paid or not on their systems so if they pull a person over for speeding, for instance, they do not necessarily see that that person never paid a $250 fine for a shoplifting charge back in 1992. The courts are the ones that maintain records of fine payments and they, for whatever reason, rarely contact the police about outstanding debts and so it is that people pretty much never serve their default time. So please don’t mistake the fact that you didn’t get hauled in to jail the last time you were pulled over for speeding for a clear debt load with the courts.

Many also assume that if they are able to renew their driver’s license, they must be in the clear with the courts. I suspect that this stems from the fact that, in many provinces, you cannot renew your license if you have unpaid parking or traffic tickets. Again, parking tickets are completely different from monetary penalties imposed by a criminal court. It is entirely possible to renew your license while still owing the courts money on a criminal matter.

We do, of course, understand that it can be difficult to remember whether a fine was paid 20, 30, or even 40 years ago. If we do discover that you have an outstanding amount with the courts during the course of our investigations, we will advise you immediately and, while your pardon may be delayed because of an unpaid fine, you will not “lose” the processing fees that you have already paid toward your file. We will simply place a hold on your file until you meet the eligibility criteria established by the Parole Board and will submit your pardon at that time. I even had one client who knew that he had some outstanding fines but who didn’t want to bother himself with the hassle of tracking them down and so opened his pardon file so that I could figure it out for him.

At the end of the day, you must not owe anything to the courts or to any victims involved in your conviction or your pardon will be delayed. Whether you contact the courts yourself or you have us do it for you, you will have to face these financial demons at some point if you want your pardon. Do not assume that fines have been forgotten because no one has been knocking down your door. They are on the books somewhere and they have a habit of turning up at the most inopportune times.