In order for Notary Depot to be able to offer you the Specified fees we ask that you:

• Make an appointment with our office and arrive on time. Same day appointments are available.
• For certified copies of documents, you must bring the original documents and the photocopies you want certified.
• Bring one government issued photo identification or two government issued non-photo identification which displays your signature.
• Complete all your documents prior to arriving at our office, except for signatures and dates.

** Always call for a quote if you need a document drafted or more than a simple signature.
**Note: The above quoted prices do not include incidental charges and H.S.T.

A Notary Public has much broader authority than a Commissioner of Oaths. A Notary Public can “certify” or “notarize” copies of documents as true copies. Notaries can notarize documents for filing throughout the world. In Ontario, a Notary Public is a lawyer.

A Commissioner of Oaths is a person authorized to take your oath or solemn affirmation when you sign an affidavit or a statutory declaration. A Commissioner of Oaths does not certify that the statements being made are true but certifies that an oath or solemn affirmation has been administered properly.

To notarize a document means to certify a document as a true copy of the original or attest to the validity of a signature on a document.  A document that has been notarized is marked with a seal which indicates that the signature on the document is legitimate.  The notary watches you sign and then places his signature and seal on the document.  This tells the person requiring that the document be notarized that you really signed it – not someone else posing as you.  In the age of identity theft and lawsuits, it is important to prove that you really did sign that important document.

Having a document notarized means that it is your signature. Notaries are not required to read through the document and evaluate it for you, nor will they alert you to any problems; their role is to verify that you signed a document on a certain date.  Notaries do not provide legal advice.

A certified true copy is a copy (often a photocopy) of an original document that has on it an endorsement by a Notary Public or lawyer stating that it is a true copy of the original document.  A certified true copy is frequently required for official government, court and commercial purposes.  It avoids the owner of important documents (especially identity documents) giving up possession of those documents, which means a risk of their loss or damage.

Affidavits or Statutory Declarations are used for many purposes, but generally they are used for the purpose of establishing legal rights.  An Affidavit is a sworn statement that certain information is true, such as a person’s identity, a person’s status, motor vehicle ownership, common-law partnership, etc.  Affidavits must be sworn or declared by the first party but can only be commissioned by a Notary Public or a Commissioner of Oaths.

The Apostille system or the apostille certificate does not exist in Canada. We have an equivalent process called “legalization and authentication”. This Canadian process verifies the origin of a document as being a Canadian document.

We accept payment by cash, Visa, MasterCard and American Express.

1. Verify the Signature.

The affidavit or declaration must be signed in our presence and the deponent/declarant YOU must provide proof of identity. Notary Depot requires two (2) pieces of valid government issued photo identification.

2. Administer the Declaration, Oath or Affirmation.

Declarations: “I, (name of the declarant), solemnly declare that (state the fact or facts declared to), and I make this solemn declaration conscientiously believing it to be true, and knowing that it is of the same force and effect as if made under oath.

Oath: “Do you swear that the contents of this affidavit as subscribed by you are true, so help you God?”

Affirmation: “Do you solemnly affirm and declare that the contents of this affidavit as subscribed by you are true?”

3. Complete the Jurat.

4. Mark the Exhibits: Exhibits referred in and attached to affidavits are marked as such. One common way of marking the exhibit is to write the following above our signature: “This is exhibit ‘A’ referred to in the affidavit of (name of the deponent) sworn before me this (date) day of (month), 20 (year) .”

Authentication and legalization is a two or three step process for a Canadian document to be recognized in another country. The steps are:

1. Notarized by a Canadian notary (this step may or may not be required depending on the type of document and the particular situation);

2. Authenticated by the Canadian government office known as Authentication and Service of Documents Section (JLAC) located at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFAT-D) in Ottawa, Canada; and

3. Legalized by the Consulate or Embassy of the foreign country where you require the document formally recognized. This is also done in Canada.

Notary Depot can take care of the entire process for you from the notarization to the return courier.

Usually, this kind of request comes when someone requires that their Canadian document be legally recognized in a foreign country. The circumstances where one may want their Canadian document such as a university degree or diploma, birth certificate, marriage certificate, corporate share certificate, director’s resolution, or any other Canadian document formally accepted abroad are varied. A few examples of such circumstances are offers of employment, family relocation, contract or business relations overseas, opening foreign bank accounts, marriage abroad, to name a few and there are many more reasons.