Country authorities intend to facilitate the procedure for obtaining pardons to citizens who were convicted for possession of marijuana.
These intentions were declared by the federal public safety and emergency services ministry Ralph Goodall.
However, not all people from Manitoba welcomed this news enthusiastically. For example, the musician Kumaran Reddy commented on this and declared that nothing had changed in his life due to legalization except the fact that he can receive pardons.
He is a fairly famous guitarist in Winnipeg but in the 90s he was charged with drug possession, which greatly influenced his career. It almost destroyed it because he was forbidden to go abroad and to give concerts there.
According to him, no minister’s words will change the ruined lives of people who, because of conviction, could not get a job, leave the country and live a full life.
Now the government is trying to rehabilitate itself and explain that it was not right in these moments and to apologize for the inconvenience.
Reddy noted that he intends to achieve pardon but he is still unlikely to be able to cross the border in the future without a special waiver. He considers it a very annoying moment that he has already lived his whole life with his conviction, and now nothing will change globally.
Immigration consultant Mitch Jessiman stressed that the new initiative at the moment is only the intentions of the government, and nothing more. Even if it is approved, it will not have an impact on crossing the border with America for such people.
The consultant said that pardon is not a permit to enter the United States. It does not cancel the facts of the prosecution, and the conviction of a person. The record of the offense still remains in the system and a person needs a waiver to cross the border.
At the moment, according to the law, in order to get pardons, a person needs to wait for several years from the end of the charge and to pay a fine of $631. Now the government proposes to remove these conditions.
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