I think the name change is foolish. I think you'd lose a tremendous amount of significance by calling it a record suspension. Pardon, to me, represents the complete circle, the closure of it. I have paid my debt to society, and that society has now acknowledged it and has basically wiped the slate clean with me. A record suspension still has the stigma attached to it: “Whoa, he has a suspended record. What did he do?”
People are biased. It's simply the nature of the beast. It's how we think. We're always going to think the worst until someone demonstrates the best.
When I take a look at record suspension as opposed to pardon, pardon is much more significant, in the fact that it's now my government that has pardoned me from my past behaviours and my past actions. They happened to put it in a folder, put it in a filing cabinet, and said, “Okay, you're good.” They've acknowledged that I've paid my debt to society.