Convention intended to simplify authentication of official documents by foreign governments
On Jan. 11, the Apostille Convention, a multilateral treaty for authenticating public documents internationally, came into effect in Canada.
Global Affairs Canada says more than 200,000 Canadian public documents are authenticated yearly. Through the new system, the provinces and the federal government will issue apostilles for official documents, such as driver’s licenses and marriage certificates, that government officials in countries in the convention will be able to recognize. The 1961 convention has more than 125 contracting parties around the world.
“For the legal community, specifically, it changes the landscape in terms of how documents are recognized internationally,” says Marty Gobin, a partner at Gobin & Leyenson LLP, in Oshawa, Ont. “Lawyers should be aware of these changes.”
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The Apostille system will streamline the process by which a client has birth or marriage certificates authenticated for immigration purposes, and businesses have contracts signed and notarized in a foreign country, he says.
Gobin practises criminal defence, civil litigation, and administrative law and teaches at the paralegal licensing program at George Brown College. He is also a member of the Bar of California. He has used the pre-Apostille system in his work for clients and found “it's not very convenient.”
For example, if someone born in Ontario were to apply for citizenship in a foreign country, they would need their birth certificate. That person goes to the Registrar of Vital Statistics in Ontario and asks them to issue a certified copy of the birth certificate. But, Gobin says most countries will not accept that certified copy at face value. They will want to ensure that the official’s signature is valid.
Under the pre-Apostille system, that person must go to Global Affairs Canada or a provincial-level document authentication body, such as Official Documents Services in Ontario. They would stamp the document, verifying that the other Canadian official’s signature is valid. The person would then take that stamped document to the foreign consulate of the country to which they are immigrating. Their consular officials will legalize the document, and then the person can use it in their immigration file. Foreign consulates also charge a fee for the legalization.
“More importantly, a lot of countries have a strict time limit on how long they'll accept a document,” says Gobin. “If I get an Ontario birth certificate issued to me in the 1980s, I can still use it now in Ontario. But in a lot of countries – if you're going to apply for a visa, for example, or citizenship – would say the document must have been issued in the last three months, which would give you a very tight timeline to try to get it to Global Affairs Canada, then to the consulate, then translated, and submitted.”
“I've personally had to drive documents to Ottawa, go to Global Affairs Canada, and then walk to the embassy that has a consulate section nearby to get documents so that they don't expire with that deadline… The Apostille system was designed to take a lot of that bureaucracy out.”
Canadians will now be able to affix the Apostille certificate on official documents –including education documents, government-issued export and corporate records, and notarized documents – and officials in foreign countries will know the documents are authentic.
Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, and Saskatchewan will issue apostilles for documents issued or notarized in their jurisdictions. Global Affairs Canada will be responsible for issuing apostilles for the other provinces and federal-government-issued documents.