“The parties seek to validate their marriage of April 11, 2021. On that date, the parties engaged in a religious marriage ceremony by a person qualified to marry them in front of friends and family. However, they married without having first obtained a valid marriage licence despite several attempts to do so. When the parties subsequently attended Ottawa City Hall to register the marriage in the province of Ontario, they were instructed to obtain a validation of the marriage from the court before officials would agree to register the marriage.
Section 31 of Marriages Act, RSO 1990, c.M.3 authorizes a court to validate a marriage entered into in good faith. Section 31 of the Marriages Act states:
Marriages solemnized in good faith
If the parties to a marriage solemnized in good faith and intended to be in compliance with this Act are not under a legal disqualification to contract such marriage and after such solemnization have lived together and cohabited as a married couple, such marriage shall be deemed a valid marriage, although the person who solemnized the marriage was not authorized to solemnize marriage, and despite the absence of or any irregularity or insufficiency in the publication of banns or the issue of the license.
The test for validating a marriage under section 31 was recently addressed by this Court in Lalonde v. Agha, 2020 ONSC 3486, and affirmed by the Ontario Court of Appeal, 2021 ONCA 651. Paragraph 52 of the Court of Appeal decision states:
Section 31 of the Marriage Act has four elements: 1) the marriage must have been solemnized in good faith; 2) the marriage must have been intended to be in compliance with the Marriage Act; 3) neither party was under a legal disqualification to contract marriage; and 4) the parties must have lived together and cohabitated as a married couple after solemnization: Isse, at para. 16. Every marriage which satisfies all four elements of s. 31 is deemed to be a valid marriage.”