How do you file for divorce?
Filing for divorce involves an application to one of the superior courts in the province where you have lived for at least one year. This could be the province where either party has lived for a year.
For instance, if you have lived in Alberta for 6 months, but your former partner has lived in BC for over a year, then you would have to file in BC unless you waited for the one-year mark to pass in Alberta to file there.
In Alberta the court is called the King’s Bench of Alberta, and in Saskatchewan it’s called the King’s Bench of Saskatchewan.
Then once you have figured out the right province, then you need to figure out the proper region of where you need to file. For those in the Lloydminster, Wainwright, Cold Lake areas of Alberta, it would be St. Paul. For those in the Lloydminster, Meadow Lake, Battleford, Cut Knife areas of Saskatchewan, it would be Battleford.
For an Alberta divorce application, how does it work?
There are a number of documents that need to be completed by either you or your lawyer to have the divorce application be processed. It starts with a Statement of Claim for Divorce or if division of family property hasn’t yet been resolved, then the document to start with is called a Statement of Claim for Divorce and Division of Family Property.
If you have children under the age of 16, you are also required to take the Parenting After Separation e-course available free through the Government of Alberta. At the end of the course, you will receive a certificate, and that certificate is required to be filed with the court.
You will also require your official government-issued Marriage Certificate. This is not the one that you received as part of your wedding ceremony. It’s the one that you order through the Registries in Alberta, or e-health Saskatchewan, or the government entity in the province or country where you were married. The official one is required to be filed, and you will not receive this back after the divorce application has been processed.
If you have issues to resolve, you will either need to negotiate those using out-of-court processes like Collaborative Law or Mediation, or you’ll have to get a judge to decide the issues for you. This can take a few months or a few years, depending on the process you choose and the number of issues you have to resolve.
Once everything has been resolved, then it’s just a matter of putting a few signatures on the final divorce application, and then submit it to the court. If your lawyer completes the paperwork, they will submit everything through the court’s online portal. If you complete the paperwork, you’ll have to submit it directly to the court. There’s not usually in-person attendance required before a judge to get this completed.
For a Saskatchewan divorce application, how does it work?
Again, there are a number of documents that need to be completed by either you or your lawyer to have the divorce application be processed. In Saskatchewan, it starts with a Petition.
The application in Saskatchewan involves quite a few more documents than the application in Alberta, but nonetheless it’s a paper application that needs to be completed.
For the Parenting After Separation e-course in Saskatchewan, there are a lot more opportunities for exemption from taking the course on this side of the border. For instance, you don’t need to take the course if you’ve entered into a written agreement settling issues respecting decision-making responsibilities, parenting time, and child support. Again, it’s an online free course.
The marriage certificate that we need to submit with the divorce application can be the one from the wedding ceremony or the official one from the government, either one works. Again, you will not receive this back when the divorce has been completed.
Same as Alberta, you’ll need to get all of your issues resolved first, then file the final paperwork to have the divorce processed.
For the actual granting of the divorce, if everything has been settled, a court appearance is not usually required in front of a judge. Your lawyer or you will submit the documents to the court and the judge will rule on the divorce application on the face of the paperwork alone.
What are the waiting periods for a divorce application in Alberta and Saskatchewan?
Firstly, to be eligible to finalize your divorce, you must prove to the court that there’s been a marriage breakdown. To do so, you must either have been separated for one year, prove mental or physical cruelty, or prove adultery. Most divorces will proceed using the proof of one-year of separation.
Once you have your initial documents filed, this would be a Statement of Claim in Alberta or a Petition in Saskatchewan, then you must serve those documents on the other party. There’s a waiting period after serving the other party before you can proceed with the next steps. In Alberta the waiting period is between 20 days and 2 months. In Saskatchewan the waiting period is between 1-2 months.