Criminal Code
Punishment for forgery
Last verified: June 2026 · Source: laws-lois.justice.gc.ca
Every one who commits forgery (a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years; or
Justice Laws is the authoritative version. If this copy and it ever differ, Justice Laws wins.
Immigration
This is the punishment section for forgery, which s. 366 defines. It makes forgery hybrid. On indictment, the top sentence is 10 years. Ten years meets the at-least-10-years test in IRPA s.36(1)(a). So a forgery conviction is serious criminality. And s.36(3)(a) treats it as indictable even when the Crown chose the summary track. No deemed rehabilitation is available at that maximum. The route is a record suspension for a conviction in Canada (s.36(3)(b)), or an application to be found rehabilitated for one outside Canada (s.36(3)(c)). Forged identity, travel and immigration documents can also engage the misrepresentation ground in s.40.
This is how the law sorts the offence, not a reading of any one record. An officer decides each case.