Busted at 18, an Ontario man says he lost his career to Ottawa's broken pot pardon process
CBC
Chris O'Neill of Stittsville, Ont., says he lost his job last week because of a 33-year-old conviction for possession of cannabis — the only criminal conviction he's ever had.
And he tells CBC News he's getting no help at all from the federal government's process for suspending criminal records for marijuana use.
The 51-year-old operations manager worked at a records management company that does business with the federal government. Because of his conviction, he couldn't get the necessary security clearance.
He was just 18 years old when he was caught smoking a joint by the Trenton Police Service — a police force that no longer exists.
After he lost a business to the pandemic's economic effects, O'Neill said, securing the job with the records management company seemed to him a sign that he was starting "to bounce back out of that ... the effect that that has on your mind to find gainful employment, respected employment, with a good income."
Now, he said, he's back at square one. "I'm a married father of three. I have a mortgage, car payments, loan payments like everybody else. So you need to make a decent wage, and to lose it cuts our household income in half."
O'Neill said he doesn't blame his employer — but he does blame the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
O'Neill is prevented from getting the record suspension promised by the Trudeau government because of a Catch-22 situation that is beyond his power to fix.
The Trudeau government limited access to record suspensions to those who can prove they were convicted of cannabis possession in the first place. But O'Neill's record mentions only possession of a narcotic in contravention of the Criminal Code.
"It doesn't say 'cannabis,'" he said.
O'Neill said he attempted to get his original court record but was told it no longer exists.
"I was told that their records are to be kept for 30 years, and unfortunately this happened to be 33 years ago, so my records have all been destroyed," he said. "Even the courthouse that I appeared in is no longer there."
The Trenton Police Service that arrested the teenage O'Neill no longer exists; it was replaced years ago by the Ontario Provincial Police.
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