Mastodawn

@oisinmcgann Your reference number suggestion makes so much sense. Plus, the fees add up! Maybe we ought to get various national writers' unions to start advocating for a reference number system. Here, the RCMP has been known to say they're too busy to bother doing your criminal record check form, drive to another town and try there. (Never happened to me but to someone I know.) They're swamped with these requests at times. They'd likely be in favour of the reference number system too.

@kvjohansen Your system sounds different to ours. Artists don’t have to pay fees for anything here, and the local guards only have to stamp and sign the copies of our IDs (not even necessary all the time). There’s only one office in the country that can carry out the actual checks, and they won’t deal with individuals, only organizations.

@oisinmcgann Here the thing you're reading at will demand a criminal record check, so you trot off to a Mountie office and ask for one, give them some info, though not as many past addresses as yours requires, pay them money, and eventually they'll send you a form saying you're clear, which you then have to give to the organization for their files.

@oisinmcgann If you're volunteering you're not supposed to pay a fee, but for a reading, but if you're getting paid it's $25, though that could have gone up, since everything else has! Except what we earn, of course. If some library is paying you below Canada Council or Union rates, say $100 and you're doing it because, 'Ohh, they're a library,' that's a fair chunk out of it. Even if you're getting CC rates, it's a lot, if they want that check. They didn't always used to but more do now.

@kvjohansen Wow, that’s a fair chunk out your all right.

@oisinmcgann Everybody needs their piece of us.

@kvjohansen Yeah, less centralized than ours. I wonder if there’s as much care taken with security of information.

K. V. Johansen Nov 20, 2022

@oisinmcgann By the Mounties, certainly. I'd guess the forms you give the organization often get stuffed into random filing cabinets nobody has the key for by summer student employees or the like, but at least that doesn't say too much, only that you haven't been convicted of any crime of the sort pertinent to vulnerable population interaction.

Oisín McGann Nov 20, 2022

@kvjohansen That’s about it. I’m pretty sure our forms get destroyed. Not keeping them is the whole point.

K. V. Johansen Nov 20, 2022

@oisinmcgann Yeah, once something's in an organization's hands, of the sort that do lit events, the chances of a strict security and retention/destruction protocol being adhered to are pretty random, since they so often can't manage to keep track of things like, hmm, cheques owed or 'has anyone fed the author?'

ArdentArchivist Nov 19, 2022

@oisinmcgann
I ran into NI equivalent some yrs back when I wanted to do some private tutoring. I knew I’d be in competition w/schoolteachers moonlighting for extra £. They’re all vetted for their jobs; I’d be at a serious disadvantage without same.
Long story short, I couldn’t find a single org. which would/could put my check through. Rules have been tightened so much no-one was willing to do it.
Individuals should be able to have themselves vetted.
I gave up on the tutoring idea.

@ArdentArchivist On that front, I think it’s purely a matter of resources, but it may also be like down here, where the vetting is specific to particular work. I don’t think a teacher here would be covered for private tutoring, as they’re specifically employed for schools.

ArdentArchivist Nov 19, 2022

@oisinmcgann
It’s a bit daft though. I mean, the intent is deadly serious & necessary, but the method is a tad lacking.
My point is: schoolteachers are already vetted to work w/kids by virtue of their job, and can state that when advertising as a tutor. I had no way to counter that; most parents are always going to go w/someone who can say they’re already vetted.
Not sure if vetting specific to school or whether it would cover tutoring too. But it certainly does in parents’ minds!