Temporary Resident Permit Help

Hi there, Ok here goes.

My girlfriend is an american citizen and was charged with shoplifting an item under 50 dollars 4.5 years ago in Missouri. June 2006 to be exact.  She crossed the border many times to Canada without issue until recently when Captain Canada Border Guard of the century decided to really investigate and found the charge, He still let her in after making her cry and telling her she will need to get fingerprinted and do all the stanard TRP/criminal rehab stuff. (5 years had not passed at this point)

I thought this stuff would be easy to figure out, because I basically did my e2 visa application by myself after my lawyer disappeared with my money, however this seems a lot more complicated.

I have read over the immigration Canadian website a few times and from my basic understanding, more serious crimes are automatically considered "rehabilitated" after 10 years, however if the crime is considered a summary conviction when translated from America to Canada, it has an auto rehabilitation of 5 years.

Now this is the tricky part, a shoplifting/theft charge can be tried as both summary (5 year rehabilitation period) or indictable (10 year rehabilitation period) With further research I have seen that the cut off seems to be

Less than 5000 stolen = Summary Conviction
More than 5000 stolen = Indictable Conviction


What do you guys think? Do you think its a safe bet to just wait until the 5 years after the conviction date has passed, essentially 3 months from now and see what happens? or to go through the whole criminal rehabilitation process which is extremely tedious and may not be necessary.

or do you think, they will treat this as it translates to an Indictable and the 10 year window applies. That is my worst fear for her, but I really cant see them doing that, and how come she was able to enter so many times without issues, many of the border guards must realize it's not a serious conviction and how she has a completely clean record since.

Thank you for all your help, I am going to browse around now and see how i can contribute.



Edited by JasonAngel - 10 Mar 2011 at 6:22pm

Thanks PMM for the response. An immigration lawyer told me this and I want to back this up somehow because obviously they have every reason to tell me this, so I will use their service.

Foremost: for any criminal conviction, the applicable period of time relevant to rehab status (whether deemed or applied for) is based on the date the sentence was completed, NOT on the date the offence occurred. In the states, some jurisdictions impose crazy long terms of probation (two or three years is not uncommon even for relatively minor offences). The period of time in such cases does not begin to run until that probation is completed.


Conviction for any offence which, if committed in Canada, would be an offense which is either prosecuted by indictment, or which could be prosecuted either by indictment or as a summary offense, results in inadmissibility to Canada, subject to the provisions for rehabilitation status.

For those offences which can be prosecuted either by indictment or as a summary offense, it does not matter if they are usually or even almost always prosecuted as summary offences, they are treated as indictable offences for purposes of Canadian immigration restrictions (inadmissibility of FNs).

What matters is the factual elements of the offence, not its characterization or degree in the foreign jurisdiction where it occurred.

An application for rehab status can ordinarily be made five years after the completion of the sentence for criminal offences outside Canada. Ten years must pass for most offences to be deemed rehabilitated (but it seems, based on reports I have seen, that of late many who should have the benefit of a deemed rehab status have been required to apply for formal recognition of rehab status. More serious offences are not at all eligible for deemed rehab status.

Inadmissibility based on conviction for two or more offences which, if committed in Canada, would constitute summary conviction offences, is subject to deemed rehab status five years after completion of the sentence.

A single conviction for an offence that would constitute a summary conviction offence in Canada does not render a FN inadmissible.

Unfortuantely for the OP, theft (see section 334 in Canada's criminal code) where the value of what is stolen does not exceed five thousand dollars is one of those offences which can be prosecuted either as an indictable offense or a summary offence, and thus for purposes of immigration restrictions a conviction for theft in a foreign jurisdiction, however minor, requires a FN to have been rehabilitated in order to no longer be "inadmissible" ... requiring at least five years to have passed since the total completion of the sentence (all fines paid, probation completed, and so on) and then applied for ... or for ten years to have passed in order for rehab to be deemed.