Funny, I usually associate Canada with good policymaking but this is substantially worse than the US.
Generally yes, but this is a specific law enforcement problem tied to Canada's unique police culture. Specifically, the way the RCMP hire and promote police officers has direct negative implications on "white collar" investigations in Canada.
Without explaining all the details, the RCMP is effectively Canada's national police force but is also the local police force for most communities. Imagine it as if the FBI also did speeding tickets. All new cops start out doing something like traffic enforcement, often in small/northern communities well away from their homes. Only after years of "general duty" (aka traffic) can they move up to things like "electronic crime". Many good people are lost through this process. The average compsci or finance grad isn't going to want to spend years handing out speeding tickets before doing what they are actually trained to do. And the people who rise to the top of general street policing are often not the best people for long-term white collar investigations.
https://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/en/police-officer-careers
"The RCMP is a national organization with diverse career opportunities like no other police service. Applicants may be asked to relocate anywhere within Canada where there is need of your services."
"You may choose to continue in general duty policing, or you may have the desire and opportunity to train for and transfer to more specialized areas of policing."
Want to investigate online fraud? Have a forensics or criminology degree? Ready to chase down people doing horrible things online? Well, here is your radar gun and ticket to the Yukon territory. Remember to bring a coat. Call us back in a few years and we may have something for you.
It is indeed an unfair system.
But the one things that keeps surprising me about the other countries isn't any of that discrimination against minor misbehaving. It is that justice promoters so often see their roles on society as harassing suspects until they break down. This seems to be the norm, and it's completely ridiculous.
This isn't necessarily true. It's dumb that it's not automatic, but you can request in the destruction of non-conviction information.
and this
https://certn.co/blog/criminal-record-check-alberta-your-faq...
It seems like employers can only factor convictions, and they must justify why that conviction would be a factor in doing the job.
What I can believe is that the RCMP would botch a case involving a native person.
Just yesterday a bunch of video transcriptions were released of RCMP officers busting up a peaceful protest by native tribes. https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/rcmp-audio-wetsuweten-coa...
The officers referred to tribal members with face-paint honoring missing and murdered women as "orcs".
In regards to arresting a mentally disabled man: "That big f--king ogre looking dude that is in those videos he is actually like autistic, then the f--king guys just beat the shit out of him and then he started crying. I felt bad for him, apparently the sergeant grabbed his balls and twisted, I guess. He was on the ground and everyone was just grabbing limbs. He didn't have a limb to grab so he just like grabs his balls like 'You done now? You done resisting?"
Canada has decent policy, but we have, for some reason, imported policing culture from the states.
If that's the case, "they can't" reject you just based on charges really means "they can as long as they don't say they did".
I haven't said anything incorrect. I said that employers can only factor convictions, not that they can't get access to other records.
It can be a useful tool, but it obviously needs to account for instances such as this.
The VSC always includes non-conviction records. The CIC omits these types of records, as this only reports convictions. However, the middle-level PIC can include these records on a case-by-case basis. The Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre reports [1]: "The police will often disclose your non-conviction records in a PIC if they believe the information will help the potential employer or other agency in their decision-making process. This assumes that these agencies are qualified to make a determination that the information disclosed will determine the candidate’s suitability or pose a safety risk."
The circumstances are especially unfair to Barker as he has been working for Duncan First Nation in a role that requires involvement in finance. So, Barker may be especially affected by the non-conviction record even for jobs related to managing finances that don't require a VSC, but also a PIC, as a police department would likely find the record relevant for any position related to finances.
[1] https://www.aclrc.com/disclosure-of-non-conviction-records
You could argue that from a probabilistic view, any person who is arrested for a crime is more likely to be a criminal than one who is never arrested ever - and it's up to us as a society whether we want to expose that information so that people can avoid hiring those who have ever been arrested.
After all, the not inconsiderable resources of the state were focused specifically on that person and their behavior, and the state determined that there wasn't enough evidence to even proceed with charges.
A person who has never been arrested has likely never had someone who is deeply incentivized to find wrongdoing look into their actions. It would seem that, logically, we should look most suspiciously at those who have never been arrested!
This is of course a naive view of the justice system. We should perhaps treat an arrest as nothing at all since we know that plenty of innocent people get arrested, and the noble thing to do is presume innocence absence a conviction instead of presuming guilt on a weak signal.
Radical feminism really fucked society with this logic since it resonates with hysterics and fools. Previously, it was how everyone blames all crime in town on the Bad Kid because he was caught stealing that one time.
"He clearly has it in him to do it!" they say. We all do, I say. Criminals aren't Morlocks from the fucking moon, they're people just like you who were unlucky/incompetent enough to get caught.
Arrests/accusations are cheap. Convictions require vetting and evidence. Weighing both the same is a social travesty that defeats the purpose of the justice system and opens everybody up to being framed for anything.
If you dare to know how dangerously you live, read up on domestic violence laws and see how many you break when arguing with your spouse. It takes very little to get yourself arrested.
This is the one that springs to mind:
> good policymaking
As a Canadian, seems like we just have good PR.
I gotta say, though, that every time I go up to Canada I'm struck by how much everything seems just like the US. If the US ever gets universal healthcare it'll be especially hard to tell the difference. Hell, we're even well on our way to having our own king!
Canada always had the worst security to go through because the same thing this guy is experiencing everyone crossing the boarder for work got the same thing from boarder security.
Anyone who had been arrested would get held at customs for a few hours, and occasionally over night. Basically you would get interrogated by a boarder guard, and the boarder guards would complain that they don't convict people of crimes in the US while asking about 20 year old arrest records.
I kind of assumed they were just terrible to foreigners coming in, but to do it to their own citizens is pretty awful.
If you tried to enter the US with a criminal record, there is a VERY good chance that you would not be allowed in, and would be handed a 5-10 year ban.
Most countries do not allow visa-less entry to convicted criminals. The fact that Canada let your co-workers in at all is at the discretion of the border guard.
Canada is very clear about the steps that those with a criminal record need to go through prior to applying for entry at the border. It sounds like your coworkers showed up to the border without the necessary preparation and were allowed to enter at the officer's kindness/discretion in spite of their criminal pasts and lack of documentation.
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...
I found Canadas process to be much more restrictive. They similarly handed out decade+ bans.
We had a legal team prepping the paperwork for these trips, they had the correct paperwork.
Part of the reason that it is harder for an American with a criminal record entering Canada is the fact that it is visa free. A convicted American at the Canadian border has likely not gone back and forth with immigration authorities, or had an interview at the embassy like a South American at the US border would.
By the time a European or South American arrives at the border they have already submitted the paperwork to an embassy (or received an ESTA/visa waiver), and have been given permission. Without convincing proof that they are eligible to enter the USA, the airline won't even let them on the plane.
The reality is that it is perfectly reasonable for a country to deny entry or investigate a convicted criminal before granting the privilege of entering the country. Doubly so when the purpose of entry is for work.
As a non convict, I had to prove to Canada that I could support myself and would not be a burden on the medical or other social systems in addition to an FBI background check, and a variety of other paperwork before I was granted residency. It took upwards of a year for all that.
By what reasoning should Canada prioritize or not investigate people that have, in the past, been a burden or danger to their society. Entry by non permanent residents or citizens is a privilege, and I think it is perfectly reasonable for a country to ensure that a convicted criminal won't pose a danger or burden.
Our work required Canadian work visas for us to operate in Canada, and everyone had the correct passport stamps before ever leaving (this again was handled by the legal team).
We were getting hassled over the arrests without convictions (this was only air travel, we never drove).
I am fine with countries doing whatever the need to. I think citizens getting subjected to similar treatment (tfa) pretty unreasonable.
It is absolutely BS that an arrest with no conviction would lead to delays at the border.
US and Canada share immigration info, so they have unusual overlap.
Try traveling somewhere on a Peruvian/Ghanian/lao passport. You will be asked about your criminal history, and you will need to produce documentation to back it up.
I don't have the data for someplace like Ghana but I wager the odds of having a record there is easily 1/10th.
(Although to be fair at airport was only place CBP told me they'd deny entry to the country to me US passport holder)
in canada you are the sum total of every mistake you have made in your life, for your entire life.