Quebec: apostille and legalization for documents issued there

This jurisdiction is its own competent authority. Documents issued or notarized here are apostilled by the Ministère de la Justice du Québec rather than by Global Affairs Canada, so the file never leaves the province.

Quebec is its own competent authority, so a document issued or notarized here does not need to travel to Ottawa for its apostille. That is the single biggest reason a Quebec file moves faster than most, and it is why an office in Montreal can turn these around without a courier leg in the middle.

A notarized document can be apostilled here only if the underlying document was issued in Quebec. A birth certificate from another province notarized by a Quebec notary does not qualify. That file belongs to the province that issued it.