For anyone considering this who has an American criminal record, even a misdemeanor (!), understand that it is extraordinarily easy to become permanently barred from Canada if you don't perform the immigration steps correctly. There is an official bribe of up to $1,000 that must be paid before you can even be considered, and unless you are exactly truthful to a fault the Canadians can find cause to permanently and irrevocably bar entry. They have access to American criminal databases and you will be checked, and turned back, at the border for even a day trip. (This bugs me by itself. I didn't harm your sovereign state.)

I know of one person who will never in her life see Canada because she got the paperwork about a twenty-year-old misdemeanor wrong, even after the $1,000 appeal to the Minister. Definitely get a lawyer. The fetish for American criminality is one thing about Canadian immigration that I would hope to see reformed. Canada is very welcoming unless you've had a taste of American justice, then they make you work very hard to enter. Caring about criminal records is common, of course; having direct access to neighboring criminal records is not, among most world countries.

Given that a number of American states are law-and-order criminal record factories, and given that a criminal record is not necessarily indicative of someone's life (if it were, I'd be selling heroin instead of debugging right now), it seems time for Canadians to revisit this policy. I'm guessing there was a flood of cons to Canada at some point that made them skittish and enshrine a bunch of hoops in legislation. With a lot of Americans now looking for possibilities such as these in the current environment, there is a huge reform opportunity here to make Canada even more welcoming.