This is part two of a multi-story series. Read part one here.
When it comes to issuing a marriage licence, most Canadians jurisdictions aren’t checking to see if the bride or groom are already married, a W5 investigation has found.
That’s one reason an MMA fighter and a former U.S. marine was able to be technically married to four people at once. Some of his spouses wish the officials had refused to issue the licences, or at least given them a heads up.
One spouse of the man, Jason Washington, told W5 that she was at a vulnerable time in her life prior to the marriage. He came on strong, proposing just a month into their relationship – and an issue with their marriage licence would have been a big red flag.
“One hundred per cent I wouldn’t have married him. I wouldn’t have done any of these things,” said the spouse and single mom, who CTV News is calling Emma.
Emma kept the wedding dress from her marriage with Washington, which her certificate says was in 2014.
“It’s like a fairy tale that got lost,” she said as she laid the dress out on a desk during her interview with W5 in Vancouver, B.C.
- Have you ever been the victim of bag tag switching and wrongly accused of drug smuggling while travelling? If so, W5 would like to speak with you. You can connect with us at avery.haines@bellmedia.ca or joseph.loiero@bellmedia.ca
‘He said all the right things’
Washington was funny and attentive at first, Emma said. “He said all the right things. Like he knew exactly what I needed,” she said.
But soon, he changed, she said, becoming more demanding. Emma said Washington spanked her son – giving her a push to leave him for her family’s safety rather than completing divorce paperwork.
She didn’t know it then, but B.C. court records show Washington had just pleaded guilty to an uttering threat charge in another relationship.
That was just one of several convictions for Washington, including an assault of the son of another wife, and he would later do time for manslaughter, killing another driver while drunk driving.
Over the course of a decade, Washington married four women in a row, apparently without ending the previous marriages.
Another woman, Sara, who married him in 2018 in B.C., said Washington never told her he was, at that time, technically married to two other people.
“Absolutely no idea. I was shocked that there were other women,” Sara said.
Each wife that spoke to CTV News was surprised that the B.C. government approved their marriage licence applications without a hitch. By December 2025, Washington was married to four people, with two of those licences issued in B.C.
What is bigamy?
Marrying more than one person at once is a criminal offense in Canada, called bigamy. But it’s not easy for a bride or a groom to get information from marriage authorities about their spouse’s history.
In most of Canada, there are three boxes you check on a marriage licence application: a declaration that you are divorced, widowed, or never married.
Family lawyer Sophie Bartholomew says it’s a crime to make a false declaration, but prosecutions are almost unheard of.
“There’s no other investigation done, as far as I’m aware, into whether they actually have a marriage already,” she said.
It turns out the only place a marriage officiant is responsible for checking if a declaration is true is Quebec, according to a spokesperson for the Ministry of Employment and Social Solidarity.
In that province, the officiant can be civilly liable under Quebec’s civil code if a person knowingly and willfully performs a marriage or civil union that does not comply with applicable laws, and they could have their authorization to perform marriages revoked.
Everywhere else, the couple’s claims are not checked, said spokespeople for the remaining provinces, which generally rely on the deterrent of the criminal punishment for lying on the form.
Checking would be ‘easy’
The provinces are missing an opportunity to do due diligence and make sure those provinces aren’t approving bigamous marriages, said B.C. family lawyer Marcus Sixta.
“I think that it should be relatively easy for the provincial government to do a search within its own database to discover whether or not somebody has been married multiple times, and if they had the ability to do that, they should probably be notifying people,” Sixta said.
B.C.’s Ministry of Citizens Services said the province approved 28,583 marriages in 2025. Privacy laws restrict what one spouse can find out about another, the agency said.
The agency does offer a “Freedom to Marry” search for $50 that produces the records held by the province’s Vital Statistics Agency. But that requires the person who is being searched to sign off on it.
B.C.’s Minister of Citizen’s Services Dana Gibson said the current system works and pointed to the threat of criminal punishment as a reason people would be honest.
“It’s indictable. It’s a criminal offense, indictable with a prison sentence. So that’s a pretty heavy deterrent. And it’s enforced by the police. And we haven’t seen this as a widespread thing. We’ll continue to monitor it,” Gibson said in an interview.
CTV News has not been able to confirm that any law enforcement agency is investigating Washington’s marriages.
Checking his history ‘was a woman’s job’
As for Washington, he told CTV News over the phone that he loved each of his wives in turn, and that he believed it was the woman’s job to determine if the paperwork was done correctly.
“That was a woman’s job. That was my soon-to-be-wife’s job to do all that,” he said.
Washington’s fourth wife has applied for and received a divorce in the state of New York. Emma and Sara are exploring options for divorces or annulments.
Sara believes the provinces should add simple checks to the process of issuing a marriage licence – or at least allow a party to search their future spouse.
“The certificates are being issued through [the] vital statistics [agency]. So, if there was a search, and I’m sure in this day and age that could be done, it would be refreshing,” Sara said.
“A woman doesn’t have to get hurt, especially if you’re dealing with someone that is emotionally and physically abusive,” she said.
And Emma wishes she could have used her wedding dress in a ceremony with someone else who had been more up front with her about their past.
