In 2012, after the Attorney General of Canada suggested in a divorce case brought in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice that non-residents of Canada did not have valid marriages if such marriages were not recognized by their home jurisdictions, the Conservative government announced that they would fix this "legislative gap". A government bill, the "Civil Marriage of Non-residents Act" (), positively declaring such marriages legal in Canada and allowing non-residents to divorce in a Canadian court if prohibited from doing so in their home jurisdictions, was introduced and received first reading on February 17, 2012, and passed third and final reading on June 18, 2013. The bill then received a quick passage through the Senate and passed third and final reading on June 21, receiving royal assent on June 26. The law came into effect on August 14 by Order of the Governor General in Council made the previous day.