See Reuters for more details; via nominatissima, who has more thoughts. I’m feeling kind of teary and sick now, and I hope Stephen Harper’s government doesn’t really go down this road. Here in Australia, of course, going to Canada to get married has been reasonably popular, and just a few weeks ago the Australian government decided to distribute Certificates of Non-Impediment to Marriage (proof of not being married in Australia) to same-sex couples wishing to marry elsewhere. (I wrote an article about the CNI issue, among other LGBT-related things, last month.) So this is a real punch in the gut. I can’t even imagine how the couples learning about this today are going to feel.
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8 responses to “Canadian same-sex marriages of foreign couples likely rendered invalid”
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Oh, shit.
That’s about all I can think of to say, really.
WTF?
Oh that’s horrible. Absolutely horrible. And I even know people who will be affected by it. *cries*
This is one of those things that can only responded to with punctuation marks, like … or ?!?!
Yeah, I was royally angered when I read what was going on.
My only, only hope is that it’s created such a backlash that even this Harper Government finds a way to make it go away. Harper is super worried about any official “social conservative” messages coming from the party.
It’s a slim hope, but a hope none the less.
The Justice Minister has very clearly committed to fixing the problem – all should be well (once the new law is passed).
They are not invalidated. A federal lawyer was hypothesizing based on a current court case where 2 out-of-country women were seeking divorce. To be divorced in Canada, there is a residency requirement. He made some wild statements to the press, they misrepresented it, and thousands of people felt their lives get turned upside down.
It would have been nice if the media hadn’t sensationalized it. A lot of people have been hurt and scared because of it. And yes, as Tamar points out, they plan to tighten up the law so that it can’t be willfully misinterpreted again.
wondering @ 7 – does that mean that property & child custody issues also go through the Canadian courts for someone from overseas who want a divorce in Canada?