ARCHIVED - Safe Streets and Communities Act: Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes
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As part of its commitment to help ensure the safety and security of Canadians, the Government has introduced the Safe Streets and Communities Act, which includes proposed amendments to the Criminal Records Act. These changes aredesigned to prevent the most serious criminals from seeking a pardon.
These amendments would:
- replace the term “pardon” with the term “record suspension”;
- require the Parole Board of Canada to submit an annual report that includes statistics on the number of applications for record suspensions and the number of those ordered;
- extend the ineligibility periods for applications for a record suspension to five years for summary conviction offences, and to 10 years for indictable offences; and
- make certain people ineligible to apply for a record suspension, including those convicted of a sexual offence in relation to a minor, or those convicted of more than three offences – each of which was prosecuted by indictment or is a service offence that is subject to a maximum punishment of imprisonment for life, and for each of which the person was sentenced to imprisonment for two years or more.
The original Bill C-23 was split into two bills: Bill C-23A, Limiting Pardons for Serious Crimes Act, and Bill C-23B, Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes Act. Bill C-23A came into force on June 29th, 2010, and the amendments in former Bill C-23B were re-introduced today in the Safe Streets and Communities Act.
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