Hi all,
Issue at hand is a DUI for a US citizen looking to work in Canada. The state has implemented an accelerated rehabilitative disposition (ARD) program which allows one to complete voluntary rehab and on completion, the charges are dismissed and the records expunged.
I've read various contradicting views on whether this makes someone inadmissible, although many law firms advertise that a legal opinion letter (which I'm sure is a money maker for them) to solidify that one is indeed admissible to Canada.
I've actually looked at the ENF manual used by CBSA officers:
A conviction does not exist in the following situations:
the conviction is set aside on appeal;
the court grants an absolute or conditional discharge as provided for in the Criminal Code;
the person is granted a pardon in a foreign jurisdiction and the pardon is recognized as equivalent to a Canadian record suspension.
As well:
To assist officers in determining whether a conviction has occurred in the United States (U.S.), the following table provides some commonly used terminology in the U.S. along with the relative Canadian interpretation. All officers should use these interpretations so that the various provisions of the Act may be applied both consistently and universally.
Expunged Not a conviction. Expunged means to strike out; obliterate; mark for deletion; to efface completely; deemed to have never occurred.
Some say an expunged DUI still isn't admissible, due to the "committing an act" provision, where despite having no conviction, the act itself is still considered an offence in Canadian law. Once again as per the manual:
The “committing an act” inadmissibility provisions would generally not be applied in the following scenarios: in most cases, when authorities in the foreign jurisdiction indicate they would not lay a charge or make known to an officer their decision or intent to drop the charges;
the trial is concluded and no conviction results (for example, acquittal, discharge, deferral);
the person admits to committing the act but has received a record suspension or the record is expunged;
the act was committed in Canada.
MY MAIN CURIOSITY IS:
I'm curious to see if anyone's been in this situation before and whether they have been successful with their respective applications (PR, visa, etc). I've looked throughout the forum and there's been many situations discussed, but never any closure as to what happened in that scenario, and if they were successful or not. Please chime in, if you have been in a similar scenario or you know of a similar scenario - I'd like to hear how it turned out.
Issue at hand is a DUI for a US citizen looking to work in Canada. The state has implemented an accelerated rehabilitative disposition (ARD) program which allows one to complete voluntary rehab and on completion, the charges are dismissed and the records expunged.
I've read various contradicting views on whether this makes someone inadmissible, although many law firms advertise that a legal opinion letter (which I'm sure is a money maker for them) to solidify that one is indeed admissible to Canada.
I've actually looked at the ENF manual used by CBSA officers:
A conviction does not exist in the following situations:
the conviction is set aside on appeal;
the court grants an absolute or conditional discharge as provided for in the Criminal Code;
the person is granted a pardon in a foreign jurisdiction and the pardon is recognized as equivalent to a Canadian record suspension.
As well:
To assist officers in determining whether a conviction has occurred in the United States (U.S.), the following table provides some commonly used terminology in the U.S. along with the relative Canadian interpretation. All officers should use these interpretations so that the various provisions of the Act may be applied both consistently and universally.
Expunged Not a conviction. Expunged means to strike out; obliterate; mark for deletion; to efface completely; deemed to have never occurred.
Some say an expunged DUI still isn't admissible, due to the "committing an act" provision, where despite having no conviction, the act itself is still considered an offence in Canadian law. Once again as per the manual:
The “committing an act” inadmissibility provisions would generally not be applied in the following scenarios: in most cases, when authorities in the foreign jurisdiction indicate they would not lay a charge or make known to an officer their decision or intent to drop the charges;
the trial is concluded and no conviction results (for example, acquittal, discharge, deferral);
the person admits to committing the act but has received a record suspension or the record is expunged;
the act was committed in Canada.
MY MAIN CURIOSITY IS:
I'm curious to see if anyone's been in this situation before and whether they have been successful with their respective applications (PR, visa, etc). I've looked throughout the forum and there's been many situations discussed, but never any closure as to what happened in that scenario, and if they were successful or not. Please chime in, if you have been in a similar scenario or you know of a similar scenario - I'd like to hear how it turned out.
