If you would like to remarry in Ontario and have been divorced outside of Canada, you are required to obtain a legal opinion letter from a lawyer, recognizing the foreign divorce in Ontario. The opinion letter must be submitted along with your marriage licence application.

In order to find that a divorce obtained outside of Ontario is valid, it is necessary that you provide your lawyer with evidence of the following:

• that either former spouse was ordinarily resident in the jurisdiction that granted the divorce for at least one year immediately preceding the commencement of the proceedings for the divorce; and

• if the divorce was granted after July 1, 1968, the jurisdiction of the granting court was dependent on the domicile of the wife; or

• whether there exists a “real and substantial connection” between both former spouses and the granting jurisdiction at the time of commencement of the divorce proceedings.

A legal opinion letter from an Ontario lawyer must be addressed to both applicants, and must provide reasons as to why the divorce should be recognized in the Province of Ontario.