Who Can Notarize or Certify Citizenship Documents for Use Internationally?
An essential step in confirming the legitimacy of your official documents is notarizing or certifying documents pertaining to your Canadian citizenship. It’s crucial to understand who in Canada is qualified to provide these services, though, and what further actions you might need to do.
Who Can Notarize Canadian Citizenship Documents?
Documents intended for use overseas may be certified or notarized in Canada by a Notary Public. A legal expert appointed by a province or territory government is known as a Notary Public. They are able to administer oaths, witness and authenticate signatures, and notarize a variety of documents. Anyone in their province or territory who wants to have their Canadian citizenship document notarized should go to a Notary Public who has a license.
Notarization vs. Certification:
It’s critical to grasp the differences between the terms notarization and certification, as well as who can notarize documents pertaining to Canadian citizenship.
Notarization: A Notary Public authenticates a signature on a document through the notarization process. A Notary Public is a certified specialist with the power to administer affidavits and witness signatures on legal documents. Affidavits, powers of attorney, and other legal documents frequently need this kind of notarization. The Notary Public confirms the signatory’s identification, observes their signing, and then applies their embossed seal, stamp, and signature.
Certification – Contrarily, certification is the procedure used to verify that a duplicate of an original document is authentic. In order to certify that the copy of the document is authentic and exact, a Notary Public will also compare it to the original. For documents like identification or other hard-to-replace documents like a citizenship certificate, certified copies are frequently required.
Certifying Your Citizenship Documents
Anytime you want a copy of a crucial document to be recognized as a true (exact) copy, it must be certified as proof of Canadian citizenship. If someone needs these services, they should get in touch with a Notary Public in their area to get a certified copy of their document to use overseas. The Notary Public must be shown the original document. After making a copy and comparing it to the original, the Notary Public will certify the copy as an accurate replica of the original.
When creating certified authentic copies of Canadian documents for use overseas, care should be taken. Copies of all documents are not accepted by all authorities (from foreign governments to Canadian authentication offices). It is best to research these requirements well in advance.
What to Do With Your Citizenship Documents? – The Next Step
There can be further steps to do before you can use your citizenship certificate overseas with confidence, even after you have read the requirements and gone to a Notary Public to get a certified true copy of it. You’ll also need to get an apostille on your documents for several international nations. Canada will be able to provide apostille certificates for Canadian documents joining other apostille signatory countries as of January 11, 2024.
Documents going to countries without an apostille will still go through the “document authentication and legalization” procedure.
