Criminal Record Checks Under the Education Act (Ontario) – What are your Obligations?

By Maureen Forestell

Regulation 521/01 under the Education Act requires school boards to collect criminal background checks for all employees and service providers at schools and school boards.

It should be noted that this regulation only requires the collection of information relating to criminal convictions for which no pardon has been granted. Similarly, the required 'offence declaration' only requires a declaration of criminal convictions for which no pardon has been granted.

Discharges are not convictions. Nevertheless when requests are submitted for criminal record checks, absolute and conditional discharges routinely appear. If this occurs, the request should be submitted again with attention drawn to the specific information sought.

In order to avoid any issue with respect to dated discharges, the record of the discharge may be purged from the C.P.I.C. system. In order to insure that no discharges are revealed, a 'Request to Purge' form is available from the RCMP website.

The request can be processed quickly and the discharge will not appear on a criminal record check.

In the case of a conviction, the process is longer. Assuming no intervening convictions or findings of guilt, a pardon application is available. Pardon kits are also available from the RCMP website.