Each day we receive hundreds of emails and phone calls from people who require the removal of a criminal record by way of Record Suspension (formerly known as Pardon). People require the criminal record to be removed in order to gain employment, volunteer, immigration purposes and traveling to the US.
The good news is that the Canadian government is still granting pardons but in March of 2012 passed an omnibus crime bill that made the process more complicated. Not only did the government change the name of pardons to record suspensions but they also changed the eligibility dates for obtaining a record suspension. For summary convictions the waiting period is now five years from the end of the punishment and for indictable offence the waiting period is ten years.
In the example below of a Canada Record Suspension, you will see that one Record Suspension or Pardon will cover all of the convictions. In this person’s case, the criminal convictions took place in West Vancouver, North Vancouver and Vancouver and included not only theft under convictions but also an assault conviction.
The process to obtain a Record Suspension can be lengthy and complicated and we have been helping Canadians to obtain the pardon for over 25 years.
