The Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security requested the government’s response to its seven recommendations, which included studying the pardon systems of other commonwealth countries, reviewing the complexity of the process to make it more accessible and the possibility of instituting a mechanism to make pardons automatic “in specific and appropriate circumstances.”

The committee recognized a criminal record’s inhibition on employment, travel, education and child care and that the fee structure should be reviewed as the $631 fee is a barrier for the poor.

Entering their fourth year in power, with a fall election, a call for further review and no action on reversing or adjusting their predecessor’s reforms amounts to failure, says Michael Lacy, partner at Brauti Thorning LLP and president of Ontario’s Criminal Lawyers’ Association.

“The Liberal government has fallen far short of their commitment to revisit oppressive legislative changes enacted by the predecessor government arising from the “tough on crime agenda,” Lacy told Legal Feeds via email.

In March 2012, the Stephen Harper Conservative government passed Bill C-51, which increased wait times for those seeking pardons, from three to five years for summary offences and five to 10 years for indictable offences. They also excluded some offences from ever qualifying for a pardon and changed the name of a pardon to “record suspension.”