The Canadian government has missed the legislated deadline to fully implement a program to pardon citizens with cannabis possession records, the CBC reports. Legislation passed in 2022 – four years after cannabis was legalized federally – requires the sequestration of all cannabis possession records in the country, which would prevent them from appearing on background checks; however, that deadline passed last month.
In a statement to the CBC, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said it is “proceeding with a manual validation and setting records aside and apart; this work requires extensive research and significant effort.”
Annamaria Enenajor, a criminal defense attorney and former director of the advocacy group Cannabis Amnesty, told the CBC that she is not surprised by the delay.
“You can’t just press control-alt-delete and have them all disappear. … There would have to be a coordinated effort on the part of the federal government to work with the provincial government and various law enforcement entities around the country. And I just haven’t seen that happening.” — Enenajor to the CBC
In October, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc issued a ministerial directive to the RCMP to not disclose simple cannabis