The watershed moment was Ryan Jenkins, who allegedly murdered his wife and was a contestant on reality show “Megan wants a Millionaire”  Jenkins passed an initial background check, apparently due to a Canadian court clerk missing filed cases.  Canada has since revised its background checking policies and tightened up it’s Canadian screening policies.

Corra’s entertainment industry background check packages are the Prime Time Package, a basic introductory package, the “Red Carpet Package”, and “The Industry Package” each provides an increasing level of screening and helps studios screen different strata of employees and contestants.

When hiring a background screening company to run background checks on international candidates, ask up front how the background check is conducted.  A professional screening company will conduct a check using their own resources or a thoroughly vetted vendor.   They will also advise you about the efficacy of running background checks in the particular county you are interested in.  For example, in Canada, conducting a Canadian Criminal Background Check can be accomplished by either running the nationwide CPIC search, offered through the Canadian Police Information Centre, or by conducting courthouse searches in the particular province where your candidate has resided.  With regard to Ryan Jenkins, there is some indication that a courthouse search was conducted and the records were not there.  If this is the case, then the court clerk possible missed the record and failed to provide it to the researcher.  It is worth considering the quality of record retention in the courthouse before conducting your search. 

As always, conduct a thorough background check on your candidates to provide a well rounded portrait.  Depending on the type of job your candidate is up for, consider reviewing motor vehicle records for driving related problems such as DUIs and credit reports for financial responsibility issues.  The more thorough portrait of your candidate you can achieve, the better you can evaluate their background to determine if it is a fit with your organization.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the man was confined to a wheelchair.

If you’ve been wondering how our California State has gotten info this budget crisis, look no further than some of these jury payouts.  Let’s assume the complaint is valid and the State neglected to do anything about the danger, such as posting wild pig crossing signs, or limiting the speed limit in the area to allow a speeding cyclist to avoid a fleeing pig.   Even if the State is correctly at fault, is it really worth 8.6 Million?  How could the victim incur this much damage from the accident, or was some of it punitive?  If so, why so much?  How about forcing the state to spend 8.6 million on improving the highway conditions? 

And finally, we wonder about the fate of the poor wild pig.   This was San Francisco; wasn’t anybody standing up for the rights of the pig?  Where did he end up? Into the meat grinders at Buena Vista Restaurant?

wild pig accident
Monterey County
San Francisco

We agree that having prospective candidates pay for their own background check may force them to apply elsewhere.   There is a shortage of nurses in the United States and Nova Scotia nurses may do well to travel south of the border. 

We disagree that the honor system is working.  The honor systems works for those who do not commit crimes.  It is naive to believe that those nurses commit crimes, will honorably report all crimes on renewal.  The honor system, while high minded and should reflect the decency and civility of Nova Scotia, is subjecting medical patients to the “honor” of a criminal minded nurse.  By reductio ad absurdum, imagine a child molesting nurse.  Are we to believe that such a nurse would admit such crimes or convictions to the nursing college knowing that this information would assuredly ruin her chance to keep her job.   The college rightfully has instituted a background check program to protect the populace.

 canada background checks
healthcare background checks

The police force is expecting to be swamped with background checks in 2008 because of volunteer-needy events, such as the Ontario Summer Games and World Junior Hockey Championships.

One solution is the privatize these volunteer background checks for the Canadian civil service. A private provide of volunteer background checks or volunteer screening would speed up the process and reduce costs to the government organizations. For example, Los Angeles Based Corra Employment Screening offering Canadian Criminal Background Checks as well and Education and Employment verifications in each Canadian Province.