On the question of criminal records, there is currently no gradation in the Criminal Records Act. No matter the offence committed, whether it be murder, sexual assault, mischief, or theft under $5,000, the person will have a criminal record once they are convicted and as long as they have not been pardoned. Individuals who have committed any of these offences will therefore suffer the same consequences, since there are no different types of criminal record.
I don't know whether, as parliamentarians, you know that over 4.2 million Canadians have a criminal record. No matter the circumstances, a criminal record is never erased before it is 125 years old. It's possible to obtain what's called a criminal record suspension, but, as the term clearly says, the criminal record is suspended and it is never erased before it is 125 years old, regardless of the seriousness of the offence that was committed.
The problem in applying the Criminal Records Act at present is that criminal records discriminate against people long after they have finished serving their sentence. That has consequences for them in things like job searches, since more and more employers are doing searches on their potential future employees' criminal records in court dockets and registries.
An employer can check someone's criminal record without necessarily having their consent. All that is needed, to get that information, is the person's surname and date of birth. A lot of people make their date of birth public, for instance on Facebook. I can do checks on anyone, once I have their date of birth and surname, using computerized dockets and court registries. A lot of companies use those services to discriminate against hiring people with a criminal record, without actually going and seeing the details of the offence, when it was committed, and so on.
Having a criminal record has a lot of other consequences, such as...