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Evidence - Notaries. Danyliuk v. Ontario (Attorney General)
In Danyliuk v. Ontario (Attorney General) (Ont Div Ct, 2025) the Ontario Divisional Court dismissed a JR, this brought against "the decision of the Manager of Legal Appointments (“the Manager”) [SS: of the Ministry of the Attorney General] denying her application for an appointment as a non-lawyer/non-paralegal notary public".
These extracts illustrate the rarely-litigated Notaries Act application procedures:[3] The authority to appoint notaries public is set out in s. 1 of the Notaries Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. N.6 (the “Act”) which provides that the Attorney General may appoint such persons as he or she thinks fit as notaries public for Ontario and may delegate the power to appoint notaries public to public servants.
[4] The Application itself sets out criteria for a non-lawyer / non-paralegal applicant:Individuals eligible to work in Canada may apply for appointment as a non-lawyer / non-paralegal notary public for Ontario. Applicants will only be considered if their employment requires the notarizing of documents in the Province of Ontario for:. Senior government officials
. Ontario registered corporations engaged in international or inter-provincial trade and/or commerce.
. Patent and trademark agents
. Head offices of national or provincial unions engaged in out-province business. Non-lawyer / non-paralegal notary public appointments will not be granted to allow applicants to:. Enter a new line of business or employment,
. Expand services currently available to clients.” ....
[6] The Application was assessed on June 7, 2024, by a Legal Appointments Coordinator. The Coordinator recommended that the Application be denied on the basis that (i) the Applicant had not demonstrated that the appointment was required, (ii) the notary appointments are not typically granted to law firms when a supervising lawyer can perform notary tasks, and (iii) staffing/scheduling issues were insufficient reasons to grant a notary appointment.
[7] The Manager of Legal Appointments agreed with the Coordinator’s assessment and, on June 13, 2024 issued the decision denying the Application (the “Decision”). In the Decision, the Manager reiterates the criteria outlined in the Application about typical circumstances when notary appointments would be made and concludes that the Applicant has not demonstrated real necessity as opposed to simply an expansion of current services available to law firm clients. The Manager suggested that the Applicant consider applying to be a commissioner of oaths which might be suitable for the office needs.
....
[11] The Applicant was entitled, as a matter of procedural fairness, to know the case she had to meet when applying for an appointment under the Notaries Act. The issue is whether she was given fair notice of the criteria the Manager was going to apply when considering her application. We are satisfied she was.
[12] The criteria the Manager applied are set out on the first page of the form the Applicant was required to complete. As noted above, the form states as follows:Individuals eligible to work in Canada may apply for appointment as a non-lawyer/non-paralegal notary public for Ontario. Applicants will only be considered if their employment requires the notarization of documents in the Province of Ontario for:. Senior government officials
. Ontario registered corporations engaged in international or inter-provincial trade and/or commerce
. Patent and trademark agents
. Head offices of national or provincial unions engaged in out-of-province business Non-lawyer/non-paralegal notary public appointments will not be granted to allow applicants to. Enter a new line of business or employment.
. Expand services currently available to clients. [13] The Application form also sets out the type of information that should be included in the supporting letter from an applicant’s employee to address the necessity criterion.
[14] Similar information is available on the Ministry’s website. The website states that applicants must be eligible to work in Ontario and must show that notarizing documents in Ontario is a “required” part of their job. The website also states that notary appointments are not granted to allow applicants to enter a new line of business or expand services currently available to their clients.
....
[18] Before addressing the reasonableness of the Decision, we note that s.2 of the Act states as follows:A person, other than a licensee of the Law Society Act, may not be appointed as a notary public unless the person meets the requirements specified by the regulations made under this Act for determining the person’s qualifications for office. [19] There are no regulations that have been made under the Act. On the basis of the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision in Welland Forge Ltd. v. U.E. Local 523 1979 CanLII 1995 (ON CA), 1979 Carswell Ont 740, 27 O.R. (2d)1, we accept that this does not prohibit the Respondent from appointing notaries public who are not lawyers as long as those appointments give effect to the rationale and purview of the Act. The rationale and purview of the Act is a central consideration in assessing whether the Decision is reasonable.
....
[22] In this case, as already pointed out, the Manager accepted the recommendation of a Legal Appointments Coordinator who did a preliminary assessment of the Applicant’s application. In that assessment the coordinator concluded that the Applicant did not meet the criteria for appointment because “notary appointments are not typically granted to law firms when documents can be notarized by a supervising lawyer. Staffing shortages and/or scheduling conflicts are insufficient reasons to grant a notary appointment.”. As a result, the Decision finds that the Applicant’s appointment was not “needed and required as part of conducting or completing regular business” but was only going to “expand services already available to clients.”
[23] Under s. 1 (1) of the Act, the Respondent is given very broad discretion as to whom they should appoint as notaries public for Ontario.
[24] To avoid apparent or actual arbitrariness in the exercise of state power, administrative decision makers must be concerned with the general consistency of administrative decisions. For this reason, consistency with long standing practice and objective criteria can be one of the hallmarks of reasonableness. (Vavilov at para. 131)
[25] In this case, the Respondent’s long-standing practice has been to limit appointments of notaries to situations of necessity, that is, that an appointment is required for a business to carry out its normal business. Where an appointment only facilitates or enhances a business’s ability to serve its clients, it is not considered necessary.
[26] In our view, considerations of whether an appointment is necessary for a business to operate is not inconsistent with the rationale and purview of the Act. Notaries public, once appointed, are given the power to verify the integrity of documents used in a variety of transactions. Counterparties and third parties rely on this authentication function that can have an important impact on commerce and other spheres of public life. Given this, there is nothing improper about placing strict limits on the appointment of notaries public.
[27] The Applicant’s Application made it clear that her law office had an existing capacity to notarize documents. Therefore, it was reasonable for the Manager to conclude that the Applicant’s appointment was not necessary.
[28] In oral submissions, the Applicants counsel (who is the principal of the law office in question) argued that her availability and the urgency of the current demand for notarizing documents did make it necessary for there to be another notary public in her law office. Nowhere in the Applicant’s application was a submission as to urgency made. If it had been, it might have been unreasonable for the Manager not to deal with it. However, given the record before the Manger, the Decision did “meaningfully account for the central issues and concerns raised by the parties” (Vavilov at para. 127)
[29] The fact that the Decision suggested the law office could benefit from the Applicant’s appointment as a commissioner of oaths did not render the Decision unreasonable. This was not a conclusion that the Applicant could then fulfill all the duties that a notary public could fulfill. This was, in effect, the equivalent of an “obiter” comment with the view to try to be helpful. It was not sufficiently central to the Decision to render it unreasonable.
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