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For whatever it is worth, most traffic offenses are "violations" in the US, not crimes. But some are misdemeanors such as driving while intoxicated (DWI, DUI). First offenses may mean mandatory jail time in many states. There's a lesser charge for slightly impaired and at this point of retirement, I don't remember if it is a misdemeanor, but it may be a violation. The legal limit for this has been lowered a lot in the last 20 years and many people violate the law (2 strong drinks could do it), but don't get caught. In my experience defending drunk drivers many years ago, people under stress (divorce for example) go on binges and get caught, but experienced drunks are less likely because they know how to drive drunk—unless they drink more than they are used to. It is kind of a hit and miss thing. Many Americans do not seem to think driving with 2 or 3 or even 4 drinks over an evening is a big deal. If they did, bars would not do so much business and parties would be quieter. Roadside drunk tests are pretty unreliable (can you repeat the alphabet backwards?) and breathalyzers are not always accurate. Many people do not hire lawyers and make a deal. Later they find out it causes them many hassles. I don't know what is the best way to handle this issue, but I think our present system is full of problems.
Other countries treat this more harshly and I never noticed until several years ago that Canada was refusing entry to people with DUI's. The US does not do the same thing, but has many other restrictions that can make entry into the US very difficult, so maybe when you look at the whole thing, it is not very different.
In our experience entering Canada is relatively easy. The border people are friendly and usually ask few questions, but some (and they seem to be newbies) try to be very serious and ask many questions. Returning to the US can be a hassle. Most of the customs or immigration people (one group now called ICE) are usually not friendly and last year their main concern was fruit. On 2 of 4 crossings we were inspected for fruit. We notice the fruit in Canadian stores is better looking than the fruit we see in US stores, but apparently Canadians eat poisonous fruit regularly. Maybe that's why there are only 30,000,000 Canadians in such a big country. One trucker was held up all day because ICE screwed up and couldn't seem to realize it. On our next trip to Alaska we may skip Skagway and Haines because we won't have to re-enter the US as much. Fruit and other such rules change frequently and are hard to figure out. Leave fruit labels on if they say US! Of course, California "bug stations" can be hard too though we have always gotten through them without incident.
I have lots of tools, but I guess at my age no one thinks I am going to Canada to become a carpenter.
It isn't whether you got a drunk driving conviction in Canada, but an assumption that anyone who has one anywhere is potentially a bad driver. I think that assumption for one conviction, especially if it was many years ago, is rigid, but it is another country and they can do what they want. Their laws on marijuana are much more flexible than ours where we throw people in jail for a long time for minor usage—that seems pretty harsh to me, so it seems to balance out.
If I had a DUI conviction, I'd just go through the paperwork and get it solved. We like traveling in Canada. The people are more friendly than in the US and the restaurants are generally better too; so is the fruit. It is a wonderful country and they are our cousins. They are much more like us than not, though some may not want to be characterized as like Americans.
Gene
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