What each level of police record check shows in Ontario

Ontario has three levels of police record check, and each one adds categories of information to the level below it. Whether a particular entry appears depends on two things: which level was requested, and how much time has passed since the conviction, discharge or finding. A withdrawn or dismissed charge is left off all three levels, with one narrow exception on the vulnerable sector check.

The rules come from the Police Record Checks Reform Act, 2015, which governs checks by Ontario police services and the private providers that work with them. Its Schedule lists nine kinds of information and says, for each one, which level may release it. This article walks through that list from the other end: starting from the entry on a person's record.

Which of the three checks has been requested?

An employer, school, landlord, licensing body or volunteer organization names the level it wants, and the request has to state it (s. 7(4) of the Act). The three levels stack like this:

1. Level 1: criminal record checkCriminal convictions that have not been pardoned, and youth findings of guilt while they are still accessible under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
2. Level 2: criminal record and judicial matters checkEverything in level 1, plus recent absolute and conditional discharges, charges still before the courts, arrest warrants and certain court orders.
3. Level 3: vulnerable sector checkEverything in level 2, plus recent findings of not criminally responsible, pardoned sexual offences flagged under federal law, and, only if a strict test is met, information about charges that did not end in a conviction.

The vulnerable sector check is limited to positions of trust or authority over children or vulnerable persons, and the province's guidance says it has to be done by the local police service rather than a third-party provider.

Look up the entry on the record

Each card below takes one kind of entry. The dark labels mark the levels that release it; the outlined labels mark the levels that leave it off. Time limits are counted from the date of the conviction, discharge or finding to the date the check is requested.

A provincial offence, such as a speeding or careless driving ticket under the Highway Traffic Act, is not a criminal offence for these purposes and is not part of any of the three checks. Our article on the first criminal court appearance explains how a charge moves through the Ontario Court of Justice before it becomes any of the entries above.

What none of the three levels discloses

Section 9 of the Act forbids a provider from releasing anything the Schedule does not list for the level requested. That rules out, on all three levels:

• contact with police as a victim, a witness or the person who made a complaint;
• police attendance during a mental health crisis that led to no charge;
• charges that ended without a conviction, apart from the vulnerable sector exception below;
• convictions for a summary-only offence once five years have passed;
• discharges once their one-year or three-year window has closed.

Older advice that withdrawn charges and street checks "still show up" was written before the Act took effect, when each police service set its own disclosure policy.

When a withdrawn charge can appear on a vulnerable sector check

Rarely, and only after the provider has worked through section 10 of the Act. All three conditions have to be met:

1. The charge was for one of the offences listed in the regulation made under the Act for this purpose.
2. The alleged victim was a child or a vulnerable person.
3. Having reviewed the person's entries, the provider has reasonable grounds to believe there has been a pattern of predation that shows a risk of harm to a child or vulnerable person. The provider looks at whether such people appear to have been targeted, whether the behaviour was repeated against more than one of them, when it happened, how many incidents there were, and why none of it led to a conviction.

If the information is released, it has to be labelled as non-conviction information and printed with the Act's definition of that term. The person can ask for a reconsideration under the regulations, and the provider has 30 days from receiving that request to decide it again. If the information no longer meets the three conditions, it is not released.

Pardoned sexual offences and the federal flag

The second route onto a vulnerable sector check comes from federal law. Under section 6.3 of the Criminal Records Act, the RCMP adds a notation to the national conviction records system when a record suspension is ordered for an offence listed in Schedule 2 of that Act, the sexual offences. A police service may search for that notation only for a position of trust or authority over children or vulnerable persons, and only with the applicant's written consent. If the notation is found, the record goes to the federal Minister, who decides whether to release all or part of it. The organization may then use it only to assess that application.

Every other record suspension keeps the conviction off all three levels. The waiting periods before an application can be made are set out in our article on when the record suspension clock starts.

Who sees the result first

The Act fixes the order in which a check is handled, whoever asked for it.

Written consent to one named level

No provider may run a check without the person's written consent to that particular type of check (s. 8(3)). An employer cannot run one quietly.

The result goes to the person checked

The provider releases the results to the individual and to no one else (s. 12(1)), so errors can be spotted before anyone else reads them.

A second consent before it is passed on

Only after receiving the results can the person give written consent for a copy to go to the organization that asked, or to someone else they name (s. 12(2)).

Limited use

An organization that receives a copy may use or disclose it only for the purpose it requested it for, or as the law allows (s. 13).

Corrections

Every provider must run a process for correcting an error or omission when a person believes the information is wrong (s. 15).

Checks that follow different rules

Some searches sit outside the Act and can release more than a vulnerable sector check. Section 2(2) lists them, and a provincial regulation adds others: a search for a non-parent applying for a parenting order under the Children's Law Reform Act, a search for the Office of the Children's Lawyer, a check for a change of name, a sheriff's search under the Juries Act, firearms licensing, and searches by the Attorney General and Crown prosecutors. What those searches release is governed by the statute behind each one.

Volunteers have one advantage under section 7(6). When the check is for a volunteer role and it is done by a police service, the first two levels carry no charge, and up to five copies of the result are included if they are asked for when the request is made. Third-party providers and vulnerable sector checks fall outside that rule.

Police checks in an immigration file

A permanent resident, a refugee claimant or a person on a work or study permit may be asked for a police check by an employer or a school, and a conviction that drops off a level 1 check can still matter in immigration law. A discharge is not a conviction, but a conviction remains a conviction for admissibility even after it stops appearing on a check. The site explains how a conviction is matched to a Canadian offence for immigration purposes, and the criminal inadmissibility page covers the hearings that can follow.

Angelina Shuster is a paralegal licensed by the Law Society of Ontario, working from Richmond Hill with clients across the GTA. Karb Law represents people on summary conviction matters in the Ontario Court of Justice and at Immigration and Refugee Board hearings where a criminal record is at issue. A police check result and the court documents behind it can be reviewed through a free assessment.

This article is general information, not legal advice, and reading it does not create a paralegal-client relationship. What a check releases is decided by the police record check provider under the Act and its regulations.