Blog Post.
There are four routes out of criminal inadmissibility in Canada, and usually only one of them will apply to your situation:
Which route is yours depends on two things: where you were convicted, and how serious the offence is when measured against Canadian law. Kingwell Immigration Law handles criminal inadmissibility from both directions, preparing the applications that clear a record and running the litigation when an application fails or a removal order is already in motion.
Most people arrive at this problem after a refusal, a turnaround at the border, or a letter they did not expect. Our work starts with working out what your record actually means under Canadian law, then choosing the route with the best chance of succeeding.
Here is what that involves:
Daniel Kingwell describes this side of his practice plainly. “I’m sort of the fire department,” he says, drawing the line between routine filings and the cases that arrive already burning.
The right route depends on where the conviction happened, how serious it is under Canadian law, and how soon you need to travel. We work through those three questions with you before any application is filed, because filing the wrong route costs money and time you will not get back.
Deemed rehabilitation applies automatically, with no application and no fee. It only covers offences committed or convictions received outside Canada, and only where the Canadian equivalent carries a maximum sentence of less than ten years.
You may be deemed rehabilitated if ten years have passed since you completed the sentence for a single offence that would be indictable in Canada with a maximum below ten years. For two or more offences that would only be summary offences in Canada, the waiting period is five years from completing all sentences.
A single offence that would be a straight summary offence in Canada does not make you inadmissible in the first place. The catch is that an officer at the port of entry decides whether you qualify, on the spot, based on what you can put in front of them.
Criminal rehabilitation is a formal application to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. It is available five years after you have completed every part of your sentence, including fines, restitution, probation, and any court ordered programs.
It is permanent. Once approved, the offence no longer makes you inadmissible, and the decision does not expire unless you offend again.
This is the only rehabilitation route for foreign convictions that fall under serious criminality, because serious criminality cannot be overcome through deemed rehabilitation. A TRP may still provide temporary entry where justified.
Criminal rehabilitation also suits people who could wait for deemed rehabilitation but would rather hold a decision on paper than have an argument at the border.
A TRP does not remove your inadmissibility. It allows an officer to let you enter or remain in Canada anyway, for a defined period, where your reason for coming outweighs the risk.
Permits can be issued for a single entry or for a period of up to three years, and they can be cancelled at any time. The officer needs a compelling reason, so a funeral, a court date, a contract, a medical treatment, or a family emergency carries far more weight than a holiday.
A permit is often the sensible first step even when rehabilitation is the eventual goal, because rehabilitation takes many months and life does not pause while it processes.
A record suspension, previously called a pardon, comes from the Parole Board of Canada rather than from immigration authorities. It applies to convictions from Canadian courts, and it is the correct route when the conviction happened here.
Waiting periods run from the date you finished your entire sentence, and which period applies depends on when you committed your first offence. For a first offence on or after March 13, 2012, the wait is five years for a summary offence and ten years for an indictable one.
Older records can qualify sooner than most people expect. Since March 19, 2020, the Parole Board applies the criteria that were in force when your first offence was committed, so a first offence before June 29, 2010 carries a three year wait for summary offences and five years for indictable ones.
Once granted, section 36(3)(b) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act stops that conviction being used to find you inadmissible.
Foreign pardons, expungements and similar measures do not automatically remove inadmissibility in Canada. Whether Canada recognizes them depends on the law under which they were granted and their legal effect.
Criminal inadmissibility comes from section 36 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, you fall into decides whichwhich splits criminal history into two main tiers. The tier routes are open to you, what it costs, and whether you keep a right of appeal.
Serious criminality under section 36(1) applies to permanent residents and foreign nationals alike. It covers a conviction in Canada for an offence with a maximum sentence of at least ten years, or any offence where a term of imprisonment of more than six months was actually imposed.
It also covers convictions outside Canada, and acts committed outside Canada, where the Canadian equivalent carries a maximum of at least ten years.
The sentence you received abroad is not the measure. What counts is the Canadian maximum for the equivalent offence.
Criminality under section 36(2) applies only to foreign nationals, not to permanent residents. It covers a conviction in Canada for an indictable offence, or two separate offences that did not arise from a single incident.
Outside Canada, it covers a conviction for something that would be indictable here, or two separate offences that would be offences here. This is the tier where deemed rehabilitation is possible.
A narrower ground also exists. Transborder criminality under section 36(2.1) applies to a foreign national who commits a prescribed offence at the moment of entering Canada.
Because this tier reaches foreign nationals, a record can also sink an application filed by someone travelling with you or joining you here.
Additional reading: Canada student spouse visa rejected
An officer compares the essential elements of your foreign offence to the closest Canadian offence, not the wording of the statute or the label the foreign system used. A misdemeanour abroad can equate to an indictable offence here, and a felony abroad can equate to something far less serious.
Canada uses summary and indictable to describe seriousness, and most Criminal Code offences are hybrid, meaning the Crown can choose either. Under section 36(3)(a), a hybrid offence is treated as indictable for immigration purposes even if it was actually prosecuted summarily.
This comparison is the part we take off your hands. We pull the foreign statute and the disposition, find the Canadian equivalent, and tell you which tier you are in before you spend anything on an application.
Impaired driving became serious criminality in Canada on December 18, 2018, when Bill C-46 raised the maximum sentence from five years to ten. For offences committed on or after that date, deemed rehabilitation is no longer available, so waiting ten years will not clear the conviction.
The change still catches people out, though not always in the way they expect. Advice given before 2018 remains sound for offences committed before the change, because admissibility is assessed against the law as it stood at the time of the offence.
What has shifted is the answer for anyone offending on or after that date, so the offence date decides which regime applies to you:
| Date the impaired driving offence was committed | How it is assessed | Deemed rehabilitation |
|---|---|---|
| Before December 18, 2018 | Criminality under section 36(2) | Possible, ten years after the sentence was completed |
| On or after December 18, 2018 | Serious criminality under section 36(1) | Never available, whatever the sentence was |
The trigger is the offence date, not the conviction date and not the sentence imposed. We check that date against the disposition on your record and tell you which side of the line you fall on, rather than leaving you to guess which version of the rule applies.
The fork that matters most is where the conviction happened. Criminal rehabilitation cannot fix a Canadian conviction, and a record suspension cannot fix a foreign one, yet applications are filed in the wrong direction constantly.
| Your situation | Route to consider |
|---|---|
| Foreign conviction, Canadian equivalent under 10 years, sentence completed 10+ years ago | Deemed rehabilitation, no application needed |
| Two or more foreign summary equivalent offences, sentences completed 5+ years ago | Deemed rehabilitation, no application needed |
| Foreign conviction, Canadian equivalent 10 years or more, any age | Criminal rehabilitation, 5 years after sentence completion |
| Foreign conviction, sentence completed less than 5 years ago | TRP, as rehabilitation is not yet available |
| Any inadmissibility with an urgent reason to travel now | TRP, alongside a rehabilitation application where eligible |
| Conviction from a Canadian court | Record suspension from the Parole Board of Canada |
| Permanent resident facing removal for serious criminality | Admissibility hearing, appeal, or judicial review |
Records rarely sit neatly in one row. Where several convictions, several countries, or a pending removal are in play, we build the sequence for you and file the pieces in the order that gives each one the best chance.
Fees are set by the government and change periodically, usually each December. The figures below are the current published amounts, and they cover the government portion only.
| Route | Government fee | Where you apply | How long it lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deemed rehabilitation | None | Assessed at the port of entry or by a visa officer | Ongoing, unless you reoffend |
| Criminal rehabilitation (criminality) | $246.25 | IRCC | Permanent, unless you reoffend |
| Criminal rehabilitation (serious criminality) | $1,231.00 | IRCC | Permanent, unless you reoffend |
| Temporary resident permit | $246.25 | IRCC or at a port of entry | Up to 3 years, cancellable at any time |
| Record suspension | $50.00 | Parole Board of Canada | Ongoing, unless revoked |
| Authorization to return to Canada | $492.50 | IRCC | Single authorization to return |
Immigration figures come from the IRCC fee list, and the record suspension fee has been $50.00 since January 2022. Full waiting period criteria are set out by the Parole Board of Canada, which aims to process summary offence applications within six months and indictable offence applications within twelve.
IRCC publishes no fixed service standard for rehabilitation decisions. We plan around that uncertainty, putting a permit in place where you need to move sooner than the rehabilitation file will allow.
Criminal inadmissibility looks very different once you are inside the country. A conviction can trigger a report under section 44 of IRPA, an admissibility hearing at the Immigration Division, and a removal order, all while you are living and working here.
The hearing is where the inadmissibility finding is actually made, and preparation shapes that outcome more than anything else does. We handle the evidence, the witnesses, and the legal argument, so you are not facing Minister’s counsel on your own.
Additional reading: how to win an admissibility hearing
For permanent residents, the six month threshold is the one to watch. Where a term of imprisonment of at least six months has been imposed, section 64 of IRPA removes the right of appeal to the Immigration Appeal Division.
Where section 64 removes the right of appeal, challenging the decision may instead require an application for judicial review at the Federal Court. Other remedies can remain open depending on your circumstances, so we assess every avenue before settling on a route.
This is why we ask to be involved before a plea is entered, working alongside criminal counsel on the sentence itself. A sentence of six months less a day and a sentence of six months are worlds apart in immigration terms, and we make sure that point is on the table while it can still change the outcome.
Not every conviction on a file deserves the weight an officer or a tribunal gives it. Foreign criminal proceedings vary enormously in fairness, and Canadian decision makers sometimes accept a foreign record without examining how it was obtained.
Our firm acted for a refugee claimant from Albania. For a decade, he fought his case with the Minister at the Refugee Protection Division, who argued that he should be excluded from protection because of a criminal conviction.
We successfully appealed the decision to the Federal Court on the basis that he was wrongfully convicted in his absence, and the RPD was ordered to redetermine his claim.
Doresi v Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness (2022 FC 1300)
That case turned on refugee exclusion rather than section 36, but the principle carries across. Where a conviction on your record was obtained unfairly, we will say so and argue it, rather than treating the record as the end of the conversation.
We are a Toronto based firm acting for clients across Canada and around the world, and criminal inadmissibility sits at the centre of what we do. Our team of three lawyers and three registered consultants is led by Daniel Kingwell, who has practised immigration law since 2001 and is an LSO Certified Specialist in Citizenship and Immigration Law.
Every record is different, so we never apply a one-size-fits-all approach. We work out the Canadian equivalent of your offence, tell you which route is genuinely open, prepare the application so it answers the decision maker’s real concerns, and appear at the Immigration Division, the Immigration Appeal Division, or the Federal Court when the matter has already moved past applications.
All of our meetings and hearings are conducted remotely, so where you live in Canada makes no difference to how we represent you.
No, you cannot be granted citizenship while serving a sentence, on probation or parole, or if you were convicted of an indictable offence in Canada, or an equivalent offence abroad, within the four years before applying. Kingwell Immigration Law checks these citizenship prohibitions alongside your admissibility before you file.
No, a charge alone does not create criminal inadmissibility for an offence committed inside Canada, although an officer can still refuse entry or hold a decision until the case concludes. Kingwell Immigration Law advises on timing so that you do not file while a charge is outstanding.
No, an absolute or conditional discharge is not a conviction under Canadian law, and section 36(3)(e) of IRPA excludes offences for which you received a youth sentence under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Kingwell Immigration Law confirms how a foreign equivalent of either outcome will be treated.
Yes, if a removal order was enforced against you and that order requires one, because an ARC costs $492.50 and is decided separately from the rehabilitation application that clears your record. Kingwell Immigration Law identifies every authorization your file needs, so nothing surfaces unexpectedly at the border.
Yes, if they are included on your permanent residence application, because your inadmissibility can defeat the entire application even though their own records are completely clean. Kingwell Immigration Law reviews the whole family unit before filing, so that one record does not derail everyone’s status in Canada.
