It’s hard to understand how keeping Canadians from finding a decent job adds up to being tough on crime. But that is what the Conservative government has done with a section of its omnibus crime legislation, Bill C-10. Perhaps there is hope in knowing that several measures from the bill have already been shot down by the courts.

Following changes to the pardon program (now called “record suspensions”) in C-10, the Parole Board of Canada has all but stopped processing pardon requests, leaving what amounts to the population of Stouffville in limbo, unable to get a job.

Those who paid more (a 12-fold increase) following the legislative changes are still being processed, although no faster than you’d expect. As for applications that got in under the wire, they are all but dead.

Recently, I spoke on the phone with a woman, let’s call her Joan. She has a criminal record for something minor from quite some time ago. The exact details are unimportant because I have a variation of this conversation almost every day I’m at work.

Her application for a pardon was submitted more than two years ago, long before C-10 took effect. And it was long after she had already earned her eligibility for a pardon by staying out of trouble with the law. By all accounts Joan sounded like a decent, upstanding person, who simply made a mistake like so many of us do.

Joan needs her pardon to attend nursing school and ultimately get a job, another variation on the conversation I have been having every day for quite some time now.

I can do exactly nothing for Joan. Her pardon remains in limbo, along with 22,300 other applications.

I did my best. I explained to her that I was angry with our government for creating this problem. I was frustrated by the inane idea that kicking people when they’re down is the best path to success.

“We fought this for two years” I said. “But we lost.”

Joan understood. We sympathized with each other. But at the end of the call I still had a job to do and Joan was still left wondering why her government had given up on her. Not all of these calls end in tears on the other end, but some do.

Just once I would like to hear an explanation from the crime hawks in Ottawa on how this situation makes sense. I would like to hear something other than empty sound bites about keeping the streets safe. I want to know where they got the idea these people don’t deserve to participate in the prosperity of Canada’s economy. I want to know why people who have finished their sentence and paid their debt to society are still being punished.

And let’s forego another groundless argument based on a unique case the media held up to the public, fanning the flames of moral outrage. Karla Homolka will never get a pardon; legislative changes made before C-10 had already made sure of that. But the Tories thought there was more to be done.

Before Bill C-10 a more serious indictable offence, whether violent or not, was subject to a five-year waiting period before becoming eligible for a pardon. Changes before the omnibus crime bill was passed retained the five-year waiting period for nonviolent offences but increased it to 10 years for violent and sexual offences, a sensible measure few people opposed. But the Tories thought all indictable charges should be subject to a 10-year wait, a simplification of the law that is hard to understand.

For minor summary offences the waiting period increased from three years to five.

Bill C-10 also contained a three-strikes rule. Now anyone convicted of more than three indictable offences that were subject to a penalty of two years or more is ineligible for a pardon — forever. Never mind if all the charges were laid in a single arrest and the sentence served concurrently. A pardon would now be impossible, regardless of the details of the case.

Oddly enough, the pardon backlog even applies to those who remain eligible under the new rules. It’s hard to be sure what is happening. But someone who remains eligible under the law should be able to get a pardon granted without being subject to an administrative breakdown.

And yet Joan, and the 22,300 others, despite being eligible for a pardon under Canadian law, can’t get on with their lives. They cannot get a job and contribute to the economy, pay taxes, take care of their families and so forth.

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The fact that an employed person is more likely to stay out of trouble than a broke, frustrated one should be self-evident. The Conservative government, being the party of fiscal responsibility, fails to see that.

Michael Ashby is director of the National Pardon Centre.

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