Pardons FAQs

A Standard Canada Pardon / Record Suspension is an order by the Parole Board of Canada that removes your criminal record from CPIC (the Canadian Police Information Center’s computer system), which makes it unavailable to all other Canadian police detachments and border officials. As well, your record can no longer be accessed by APIS (Advance Passenger Information System) a computer system used by US Customs airport officials. Once pardoned your criminal record information may still be seen by the arresting police detachment on their internal PIRS or PROS system, however such information is usually not accessed if nothing comes up on CPIC.

As of March 13, 2012, the new waiting periods are: 5 years for all Summary convictions and 10 years for all Indictable convictions, starting after all dispositions have been served, except if you live in B.C. or Ontario, which is back under the 3 and 5 year rule. If your offense(s) was before March 13, 2012 the 3 and 5 year rule applies throughout Canada, unless the charge was a very serious Indictable offense such as manslaughter. If you have a Schedule 1 sexual conviction involving a minor, or if you have 3 or more Indictable convictions, each with a prison sentence of 2 years or more, you are no longer eligible to receive a Pardon.

Normally all the information is removed from CPIC within 2 weeks after the Pardon is granted. This means by the time you receive your Pardon Certificate in the mail, the information on CPIC should have been removed.

Yes, we can process Pardon applications for Canadians living anywhere in the world, as long as the area receives mail and/or courier deliveries.

Our fee for processing a Canada Pardon application is: $695.00 plus GST ($34.75) = $729.75. Our $695.00 Administration Fee includes: Free Priority Service, Application and Document Processing, Application Tracking, Agency Follow-up Phone Calls, Email Updates, Express Courier Fees, Return Postage, Faxes, Document Scanning, Photocopies and Document Certification Fees. Disbursements Fees: $84.00 for Court Records from Alberta. Local Police Record Search Fee ($35.00 Administration Fee plus the Police Agency Fee – free to $76.00 depending on the police agency). Note: When your application is ready to be submitted you will be required to pay the Parole Board Filing Fee, which is now $50.00 (as of January 1, 2022) Note: There will be a $84.00 biometric fingerprinting fee charged by Alberta Fingerprinting Services (which will speed up the processing of your Certified Record). If you live outside the Edmonton area we will arrange for you to be fingerprinted at the nearest biometric fingerprinting office or your local police station. There you will have to pay their fingerprinting fee, which ranges in cost. Note: Court Record Search fees will normally apply for each offense. Additional fees will also apply if you have served in the Canadian Military, and for each Local Police Records Check from where you have lived for last 5 years. Military Record Searches are $84.00 each, and Local Police Record Checks are $35.00, including GST, plus the Police Agency Fee (if applicable). Note: If you have any type of Assault conviction besides a section 266, the PBC requires official “Proof of Age” of the victim by ordering a copy of the Police File. The fee for this is normally $252.00 per file including GST. Note: If you have a Sexual Assault conviction against an adult there will be an additional fee of $504.00, as there is additional paperwork and we will also need to do a Privacy Act Information Request to the arresting police agency.

For 1 to 3 Summary offenses, it is currently taking about 3 months to assemble a Pardon application and then it takes the Parole Board about 5 months to process the application and grant a Pardon. Unfortunately, there is no faster way to do this, no matter how much you pay some other company. Note: Our Priority Pardon Service means we prioritize your application and all paperwork is done within a 24 to 48 hour period. We have the dedicated staff to do this and we do not charge extra for this. Note: If you have 4 or more offenses and/or have committed an Indictable offense(s) or you have recent charges on your Local Police Record Check, it may take up to 6 months to assemble your Pardon application due to backlogs at courthouses, and then another 12 to 15 months for the Parole Board to process it. For more detailed information when it comes to current application processing times, please see Our Current Application Processing Times.

Unfortunately, the Parole Board is no longer providing priority Pardon / Record Suspension services for any reason, due to the extremely high volume of priority requests that have been received in the last few years. NOTE: Companies that still claim to have a Priority Pardon Service that assures a Pardon application will be completed and granted faster than normal, in our opinion, are committing fraud.

We guarantee that you will get a Canadian Pardon as long as you are eligible to receive one. This means the RCMP have not stated that a criminal record does not exist, you have not recently committed or been involved in any offense(s) that would void your eligibility or indicate that you are still deemed to be a high risk to re-offend, you have completed your 5 or 10 year waiting period, all fines have been paid and all penalties and/or dispositions have been served, there are no outstanding warrants for your arrest, and you have had no negative police interactions within the last 5 years which the Parole Board can use against you, including speeding tickets they can use against multiple and/or Indictable offenders.

Unfortunately, due to time restraints and the many complications that often arise, we can only provide US Waiver application services, if required.

Unfortunately, US Customs does not recognize a Canada Pardon if they become aware of it. If you have never been denied entry, deported or interviewed by US Customs, and US Customs has never accessed your criminal record via CPIC or APIS prior to you being granted a Canada Pardon, and your criminal record was properly sealed, then US Customs will no longer be able to access it on CPIC or APIS However, US Customs officials have several ways of finding out if you have ever committed a criminal offense, or if you were ever arrested and fingerprinted. If you are not properly prepared to answer their wide assortment of questions you could be denied entry, face property seizures, short-term imprisonment, and be banned from entering the US in the future. Our Standard Canada Pardon removes your criminal record from CPIC and APIS, and includes all the information you will need to navigate US Customs, which saves thousands of dollars and a lot of grief in not requiring US Waiver services. Note: If you were at one time involved or suspected of trafficking narcotics your Record will have most likely been put on the Dangerous Drugs List in Ottawa. Also, if you were suspected of other domestic or international gang related activities, or you have multiple sexual assault charges, or you have weapons offenses, detailed information may have been placed on PIP, and a copy of your record could have been sent to the FBI and/or placed on Interpol. If so a Pardon will not remove this information, and US Customs has access to the information. Also, if there were co-accused and they provide court records to US Customs with your name on them, you will most likely be red-flagged.

In order to be eligible to receive a Pardon, you must have completed your sentence and then have waited 3, 5 or 10 years, depending on what type of offense is on your record, when it was committed and where you live, while being “of good conduct” during the same period. Completion means all fines, surcharges, restitution, etc., have been paid, jail time has been served, and all probation has been completed, for all offenses. See #A1 for more information. Note: The PBC now demands that all applicants prove that all fines, etc., were paid via Certified Court Records, no matter when the penalty was issued. Note: For all offenses you now must write a Personal Letter of Rehabilitation (Step 9) to the PBC (provided by our office along with very detailed instructions and a fillable Word or PDF form). Sworn Affidavits may also be required when Court Records are no longer available (provided in our office by a Notary Public).

If you are found to be not of good conduct your application can be denied. No company provides refunds after an application has been completed and submitted to the PBC. Partial refunds are given if an applicant is not eligible to receive a Pardon.

You can call our office and apply over the telephone or fill out our secure online application form and submit it to us along with your on line payment.

Most countries (except for the USA, UK and Australia) will not ask you self-incriminating questions, even if they don’t have access to CPIC. Of course if you freely admit to having a criminal record for serious offenses, or a copy of your record has been placed on Interpol, you could be questioned at length and possibly denied entry. For more information on traveling abroad when you still have a criminal record, you should contact the Consulate General’s office of the country.

No. This is due to the many time consuming complications that arise which take our staff away from the duties and responsibilities of serving our clients.

Yes, as long as the victim was not a minor, and after being of good conduct for 5 or 10 years. However, your name will be flagged in the Canada National Repository. This means if you are going to work around vulnerable people such as children, seniors or disabled individuals, you will be required to disclose your past criminal history to the employer before employment. If the victim was a minor and you were not more than 5 years older then the victim, you may still be eligible to receive a Pardon.

Unfortunately, we have heard that the PBC will stop processing a Pardon application if they hear the applicant has perished during the 6 to 12 month process. On January 14, 2016 an officer from the PBC explained that they will cancel the application if they hear that the applicant is deceased. For this reason, we no longer advise updating the PBC if the applicant has perished.

An FPS Number is a FingerPrint Section Number, which is a number that is put on CPIC when you are fingerprinted after committing a criminal offense. We have very good reason to believe that since 2008 all Passports have been encoded with an FPS (FingerPrint Section) number if you had a criminal record on CPIC at the time your Passport was processed. Getting a new Passport after getting a Pardon does not take the original FPS number off the Passport, which is ingrained into the barcode.

No. At this time people who have been convicted of only 1 Summary offense (not including a Possession of Narcotics offense) or who have 1 DUI, Reckless Driving, Mischief, Possession of a Restricted Weapon, Illegal Possession of Firearm, Fail to Appear, Fail to Comply, and General Assault (Sec 266) offenses are allowed to enter the U.S. However, when multiple charges are on the record, spanning over a long period of time, or you have what appears to be an Indictable offense, you most certainly will be denied entry and required to submit an I-192 Waiver application.

Yes, if you receive a Letter from the Parole Board saying they are proposing to deny your Pardon application due to recent negative police interactions, or they are proposing to revoke your pardon due to you having committed another criminal offense, for a fee we can assist you in writing a letter to the Parole Board within the 90 day time period. Please call us for more details.

The Parole Board of Canada is now accepting Cannabis Record Suspensions. There is no filing fee to submit an application if you are willing to obtain all the required Records and then mail in your application. If you would like our assistance, for $249 plus GST, plus disbursements, our office will assemble all the required documents and submit them on your behalf. To apply online please complete our Cannabis Record Suspension Application. Note: Disbursements may include fingerprinting, in order to obtain a Criminal Record from the RCMP, a Local Police Record Check, in order to see the Charge and Conviction date, as we need to prove the charge was for simple / minor possession of cannabis, and not some other narcotic. Once the Parole Board of Canada purges the possession of cannabis conviction, the charge(s) will be removed from CPIC and APIS, meaning US Customs or any other agency will no longer see the conviction. Our service includes a Cover Letter explaining how to navigate US Customs and other customs officials. Note: According to the Criminal Code of Canada, which is what the Parole Board of Canada goes by, any other form of cannabis (concentrates such as hash or oil) is not considered “cannabis”. Furthermore, you are required to prove you were in possession of cannabis only by submitting a Local Police Records Check and Court Records, and if such Records have been destroyed, a Privacy Act Information Request is required, and if that fails, a Notarized Sworn Statement, all of which we can provide.

As a Pardon client, we will send you a Draft Letter addressed to the Parole Board addressing the reasons they are making a Proposal to Deny your Pardon application. The Letter will be based on several factors including if you are married or single, working or in school, etc. The Letter will also come with some draft Character Reference Letters based on the same factors. If you are not good at writing letters, for an additinal fee we offer a Professional Proposal to Deny Letter Writing Service. We will get all pertinent information from you in a telephone interview and then write the Letter on your behalf. Our staff is very good at writing these letters and very rarely has the Parole Board denied a Pardon after getting a professionally written Letter. For more information, please contact us.