Canada: Having a marriage registered there to meet JFRV req

Legal Legal - Marriage
1

So I made the trip to Taipei to get my affidavit swearing that I am not married and am thus eligible for marriage in Taiwan. As I am returning to Canada in June for a short stay I intended on bringing my marriage certificate with me, getting it certified by Canada, getting my criminal record check, and having both those documents certified by the local TECO office.

Problem is that I found out provinces only provide certification for marriages which occur in those provinces. This sounds like to me that the only way I can overcome this is to actually bring my finacee to Canada and get married there. Is that true? Has anybody from Canada found a different (better?) way?

2

The requirement to register your marriage in your home country is waived if the country has no household registration or other system of formally registering a foreign marriage. If your marriage here is recognized as valid in Canada without doing anything further then the requirement is waived. BOCA and/or your country’s representative office should be able to advise you if this is a requirement for Canadian citizens, though I suspect one of the Canadians on here will be able to tell you. US Citizens, for example, don’t have to register their marriage in the US in order to get a JFRV.

3

If you have already registered your marriage in Taiwan, you are good to go. Canada recognizes marriages performed in Taiwan. We wanted to have a second ceremony in Canada for the benefit of friends and family there, but the government said they couldn’t give us a marriage license because we had already done it here. We still had a ceremony, but it was just for show.

4

dangerousapple - Think you missed the point, somewhat. It has nothing to do with Canada recognizing the marriage - it has to do with Canada acknowledging that they recognize the marriage.

jlick - thanks. I will go down to the NIA office today to confirm what you told me.

5

Yeah, maybe I did. All I know is that when I applied for my JFRV I was not required to show any kind of proof that Canada recognized my Taiwan marriage. The only thing I needed to get certified (and translated…but they didn’t tell me that until later unfortunately) at TECO was my criminal records check. I did it all through the mail here from Taiwan. But that was last year, and a different government office. Maybe things have changed.

6

Yeah, I went down today to the NIA office and they said the same thing as jlick did and that you confirmed through your experience - Canadians married in Taiwan are not required to register their marriage in Canada (as it’s impossible). That’s a big relief for me.

With your criminal record check did you need that translated before you sent it to TECO? Or after? Translated by whom? Some official agency or virtually anyone?

Thanks.

P.S. Anybody know how long the affidavit swearing that one is unmarried is valid for?

7

I’m not sure if this helps at all, but the Taipei BOCA told me to go to the AIT(I’m American) to get an affidavit claiming that I agree that I am married to a Taiwanese citizen and that I am willing to swear to my country that it is the truth. I think it may be something similar for Canada.

It was easy, but of course another 1000NT and more time.

8

Your CCRD doesn’t need to be translated.

9

timmyjames - Yeah, as mentioned in the OP that was easy and has already been done. Still would like to know how long it’s valid for though.

funkymonkey, dangeousapple - One says that he needed the CCRD translated and one says it’s not necessary. What’s the truth? Duke it out boys.

10

The going rule seems to be 3 months, but who knows. Frustrating, isn’t it?

11

Straight from the BOCA website:

http://www.boca.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=1866&ctNode=113&mp=2

There you go. I’ve never met anyone who needed the CCRD translated from English to Chinese, including my own.

12

I agree that the records check is not supposed to need translation, but…

I needed to get my records check translated last year. My original application was rejected by the wonderful people at foreign affairs because it wasn’t translated into Chinese, even though it was authenticated by the TECO office in Vancouver. I had to take it to a notary public office in Kaohsiung which translated it and notarized the translated copy. This was then accepted along with the original English document and my JFRV was processed.

I agree with funkymonkey that the law doesn’t say anything about needing a translation. It was another case of the cops adding their own interpretations of the law. It doesn’t make any sense, and it doesn’t follow the rules, but it was faster to just go do it than to continue arguing with them about what the requirements are.

You shouldn’t need to get it translated, but just in case, ask very clearly if it needs to get translated, by whom, and what kind of extra authentication the translation will need. Hopefully they will just give you a funny look and say it’s not necessary.

13

I suspect that dangerousapple ran into staff who weren’t aware of the rules. My understanding is that for the last several years that foreign documents in English or Chinese do not need to be translated before being submitted to government agencies.