McAleese: Here's why Canada needs more automatic pardons for crimes

As the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health discussed the Cannabis Act last week, there has been a lot of chatter about providing expedited – if not free and automatic – pardons to people with simple possession convictions.
This is a step in the right direction, but there are thousands of other people with different kinds of criminal records who are now law-abiding, yet face discrimination as it relates to employment and access to other basic necessities who need similar con