Reference and Background Checks in Canada: What Employers Can and Can’t Do

Most Canadian employers check something before making a final offer. Sometimes it’s a quick call to a former manager. Sometimes it’s a full criminal record check, a credential check and a call to every employer the candidate has listed. Either way, the process is shaped by two sets of rules that many hiring managers only half know: privacy law, which controls how information about a candidate is collected and used, and human rights law, which controls what can be held against them.

Consent comes before anything else

Which privacy law applies depends on the employer. Federally regulated businesses, such as banks, airlines, telecom companies and interprovincial trucking firms, fall under the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) for employee information. Most other private employers in British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec are covered by those provinces’ own private-sector privacy laws. In provinces without a similar law for employee information, like Ontario, there’s less legislation to follow, but the same practice is still the sensible one.

That practice is straightforward: tell the candidate which checks you plan to run, explain why, and get their written agreement before you start. A short consent form that names each check, whether references, a criminal record check or a credential check, protects both sides. It also stops the common habit of calling people the candidate never named as references. Under privacy laws that apply, that kind of informal digging can be a problem. Even where it isn’t, it tends to produce gossip rather than useful information.

Police services and accredited screening companies will ask for the candidate’s signed consent before running a criminal record check in any case, so the conversation has to happen at some point.

Choosing checks that fit the job

There’s no standard package of checks that suits every role, and running more checks than a position needs can create legal risk. The better approach is to ask what the job actually involves.

For most positions, reference calls and confirming past job titles, dates and education are enough. Reference calls work best when the questions stick to the work itself: how the person handled deadlines, how they worked with a team, and whether the former employer would hire them again.

Roles involving cash, financial records or sensitive data may justify a criminal record check, and in some cases a credit check. Jobs that involve driving usually call for a driver’s abstract from the provincial licensing authority. Positions where someone will work with children, seniors or people with disabilities often require a vulnerable sector check. That’s a more detailed police check that can take longer, especially when fingerprints are needed to confirm identity.

The point is proportion. A credit check for a warehouse picker, or a vulnerable sector check for an office role with no contact with clients, is hard to justify. It also collects information the employer has no real reason to hold.

Questions that cross the line

Each province has its own human rights code. Together with the federal Canadian Human Rights Act, these codes prohibit discrimination in employment on grounds that include race, religion, national or ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, family status and disability. The exact list differs slightly between provinces, but the practical effect is the same everywhere: questions that touch these areas don’t belong in an interview or a reference call.

That includes asking a former employer whether the candidate took a lot of sick days, had children or followed a particular religion. Whether the person can do the essential duties of the job is a fair question. Why they were absent, or what health condition they have, generally isn’t.

Criminal records need care too. Several provinces protect people from employment discrimination based on criminal history in certain situations. In Ontario, for example, the Human Rights Code protects against discrimination based on a “record of offences,” meaning offences for which a pardon or record suspension has been granted, and provincial offences. British Columbia and Quebec protect people whose convictions are unrelated to the job. The safe position for employers is to look at whether a particular record actually relates to the duties of the role, rather than treating any record as automatically disqualifying.

Candidates with work history outside Canada

When the candidate’s experience comes from another country, everything takes longer. Former employers may be several time zones away and slow to answer. Some universities only confirm degrees through formal requests, which can take weeks. Police certificates from some countries have their own application processes and waiting periods.

Employers hiring from abroad usually do better by starting these checks as soon as there’s serious interest, not at the end of the process. It also helps to tell the candidate early what you’ll need. Many internationally trained workers already have police certificates and transcripts from their immigration paperwork and can provide them quickly. If the person will need a work permit, the immigration process includes its own checks, but those don’t replace the employer’s own reference checks.

Handling the results responsibly

Once checks are complete, the information they produce should be stored securely, seen only by the people involved in the hiring decision, and kept only as long as there’s a real reason to keep it. British Columbia’s private-sector privacy law, for example, generally requires an organization to keep personal information it used to make a decision about someone for at least a year, so the person has a chance to see it. After that, records that are no longer needed should be destroyed rather than left in old email folders.

For employers who hire across borders, screening is just one stage in a longer process that can also include work permits, labour market assessments and onboarding. Seeing how these steps fit together, and how a recruitment agency in Canada usually handles them, makes it easier to plan a realistic hiring timeline from the first interview to the first day of work.