@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.