Visitor: Hi sir, so what happened was that in 2017 November I was accused of shoplifting at Walmart under 5000$ and I was asked to report at court. I went to the court and all my charges were dropped immediately but during that process I had to report to the police headquarters and give my fingerprints. Now in September 2019 I got a job at the bank BMO in Toronto and they asked me for a criminal background check and now my report from the RCMP department says that I have a criminal charge and my report will take a lot of time, like 120 days or even more.

Pardons Canada: Many people believe that if their charges were withdrawn, dismissed, stayed, peace bond, absolute or conditional discharged that the criminal offence will automatically disappear. As you can read from the message above, this is not always the case.

Fingerprints taken by the police when you are criminally charged can stay in the system even after your charge is dismissed or withdrawn in court. This is obviously a concern for those subject to criminal background checks, particularly for employment and travel.

It is important to apply for a file destruction to remove the fingerprints from the local police and rcmp files. Once the file destruction is completed then you will be completely safe for work and travel. In other words, once the file destruction is completed then the rcmp and police file will come back clean and you will never have to worry about it showing up again.