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!

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!

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.

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.

It never ceases to amaze me just how powerful the fear of what other people are thinking can be. For the lady I mentioned above, it has prevented her from moving past her youthful indiscretion for over 3 decades!!! How many opportunities has she passed up because of this silly little charge from so many years ago? How many nights has she spent worrying what would happen if her children or employer found out about her past mistake? I am glad that she was able to muster the courage to pick up the phone today because now, within a few short months, we will be able to completely eliminate this stress from her life. I hope she realizes that I have nothing but respect for the fact that she had the strength to take control of her life, even if a few bad memories were dredged up in the process.

Of course some of our clients have more serious records than others. I assure you that no charge is too shocking that you won’t be met with professionalism and courtesy from our staff. We have seen it all before and we realize that people can and do change. To be honest, one of my favorite aspects of this job is that it gives me an opportunity to see the humanity in my clients. It has taught me that media portrayals of “criminals” never tell the whole story and that sometimes good people make bad mistakes.

Please don’t be afraid to share your story with us. We can help you to move on from your past mistake, no matter how big or small.

First and foremost: do NOT get angry with the US Customs and Border Protection Official who is refusing your entry. She may be the most discourteous person in the world, but telling her so is not going to gain you any points. Worse, it could land you in jail. Remember that it is ILLEGAL to attempt to enter the United States if you have ever been arrested for certain crimes. You should be thanking the officer for not cuffing you and for allowing you to withdraw your application for entry instead.

Tying in to my first point; try not to take it personally. I realize that it may be humiliating, but you are being refused because the Immigration and Nationality Act says that you are not welcome, not because the border guard is trying to ruin your day. The legislation surrounding admissibility is extremely complicated and border guards will err on the side of caution if there is any question about whether you are legally allowed to be in their country. It doesn’t matter that your conviction is 40 years old or that it was “just pot”. The law says you’re out, period. And the border guards are simply paid to enforce the law.

Finally, whatever you do, do NOT try to reenter at another border crossing if you have already been refused. All ports of entry are linked and an officer at Pearson airport can very easily see that you have just been refused at Calgary. Customs officials do not take kindly to being toyed with so attempting to jump the border in this way can bring severe repercussions. Moreover, incidents such as this are taken into consideration when Homeland Security reviews your waiver application. This could be difference between a one and a five year waiver. So don’t do it.

All in all, though it may be hard to admit, there is no one to blame but yourself if you are refused entry. Ultimately, it is always your responsibility to find out about a foreign country’s admissibility requirements before you plan to travel there. Fortunately, there are ways to avoid the embarrassment of a refusal at the border. A quick phone call or email to our office will let you know if you can go ahead with your honeymoon in Maui or if you need to make other plans.

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.

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 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.

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 against a child 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 against a child 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 against a child 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 where the victim was a child 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