Pardons sought by ex-inmates plunge
Tories toughened rules last spring
OTTAWA — Applications for criminal record suspensions, formerly known as pardons, have plummeted since the Conservative government finalized tough new rules last spring.
Statistics released to The Canadian Press under the federal access-to-information law show 15,871 applicants between March 2011 and this past December, down more than 40 per cent on an annualized basis compared to 200910.
A relatively small portion of those applications — 8,631 — even got through the door for processing by the Parole Board of Canada.
The board used to send back about 25 per cent of applications for various reasons, but the “error rate” in 2011 was more than 45 per cent.
The end result is a dramatic drop in the number of former convicts who are able to put their criminal past behind them and start anew.
The Parole Board says 3,693 record suspensions were granted from Mar. 13, 2012 — when the new rules kicked in — to Dec. 6. Compare that to more 24,000 pardons granted in 2009-10, the last full year before Ottawa began changing the system.
Another 431 applications were still at screening on Dec. 6, while 4,800 had been accepted but no investigation started.
Just 66 applications that made it into the screening process were refused.
But getting through the door is now the challenge.
One private pardon service — the equivalent of tax preparation professionals — complains the parole board has become “almost obstructive” towards pardon applicants.
And sharply restricting the number of former offenders who are able to bury their past has ramifications: a record suspension can help the recipient get a better job or travel abroad, and is considered a powerful incentive not to reoffend.
“If you’re burdened with mistakes of the past on an ongoing basis, that in itself can contribute significantly towards further problems as you go through life,” Dennis Fentie, Yukon premier from 2002 to 2011, said in an interview. “It becomes a real challenge for individuals. They’re shunned. Certain doors aren’t open to them.”
Fentie speaks from experience. In 1975 he was convicted for his involvement in a heroin trafficking ring in Edmonton and sentenced to three years in prison. He served 17 months before being released on parole. Two decades later he received a pardon.
“In my case, I went from the penitentiary to the premier’s office,” said Fentie, who rose to power as leader of the conservative Yukon Party.
“And the reason I got there was because I was able to achieve that full pardon and have a clean slate in my life.”
Changes to the federal pardons system all stem from the 2010 revelation by The Canadian Press that serial predator Graham James, a former junior hockey coach, was quietly granted a routine pardon in 2007.
James has since been convicted of historic assaults on two other young hockey prospects under his influence, and his pardon galvanized public opinion behind changes to the pardons system.