Rehabilitation – Deemed Rehabilitation
Temporary Resident Permit (TRP)
If you need to come to Canada, but you are criminally inadmissible due to a past conviction, do not worry. A past conviction does not mean that you will absolutely be denied entry to Canada. A Temporary Resident Permit allows you to overcome inadmissibility, such as a criminal inadmissibility.
You can apply for a Temporary Resident Permit by demonstrating that you are a rehabilitated individual. This means, you need to demonstrate that you are a law-abiding citizen who has not committed any crimes since your last conviction. Furthermore, you may be deemed rehabilitated if a certain amount of time has elapsed since your last conviction.
Rehabilitation & Deemed Rehabilitation
You may be able to overcome criminal inadmissibility through the rehabilitation process. You will be considered rehabilitated if you can demonstrate that you have not committed any offences since the last offence you committed and that you are an upstanding, law-abiding citizen who is unlikely to commit any further criminal offence.
If a certain amount of years have passed since you committed your last offence, depending on the nature of the offence, you may also be deemed rehabilitated. Deemed rehabilitated is a way of saying “automatically rehabilitated” given a certain amount of time has passed since you last committed and were convicted of an offence.
Eligibility
You can consider rehabilitation as an option for you if:
- You committed an offence outside of Canada and five (5) years have passed since the offence; or
- You have been convicted of a criminal offence outside of Canada and five (5) years have passed since the end of the sentence imposed
Your eligibility for rehabilitation and/or deemed rehabilitation will also depend on the nature of the offence and the sentence imposed for the particular offence. For example:
Offence & Sentence | Deemed Rehabilitation | Rehabilitation |
You were convicted of an offence that if committed in Canada, would be an indictable offence punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of less than 10 years | 10 years after the completion of your sentence | 5 years after the completion of your sentence |
You committed an offence that if committed in Canada, would be an indictable offence punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of less than 10 years | 10 years after you committed the offence | 5 years after you committed the offence |
You were convicted of an offence or you committed an offence that, if committed in Canada, would be punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of ten years or more | N/A | 5 years from the completion of your sentence or the commission of the offence |
You were convicted for 2 or more offences that, if committed in Canada, would constitute summary conviction offences | 5 years after the sentences imposed were served | N/A |
Cannot Apply for Rehabilitation?
If you do not meet the requirements to apply for rehabilitation or to be deemed rehabilitated (for example, five years has not passed since the completion of your sentence), you may be able to submit an Application for Criminal Rehabilitation in which you can ask for special permission to enter Canada.
Tags: criminal inadmissibility, Criminal record, Criminal Rehabilitation, Criminal Rehabilitation Application
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