The pardon system has been in chaos for almost 2 years now. When Bill C23A passed in June 2010, it created a bottleneck at the Parole Board that has been getting worse with every passing day. When C10 was approved in March 2012, it seems to have dramatically improved Parole Board processing times for new record suspension applications. Many have been granted in under two months. We understand that this not fair to those who submitted their pardon applications under the old fee structure (some of whom have been waiting for close to 2 years now) but we are happy that the Board has recognized that their previous system was clearly broken.
More good news comes from the RCMP because it has really cleared up its backlog over the past few months and is now returning certified criminal records for pardons and waivers within a couple of weeks. This helps a lot.
We are extremely happy about these turnarounds and hope that they continue. With any luck, some of our clients could be seeing their criminal records cleared within 3 or 4 months!