Bill 25 amends New Brunswick’s Midwifery Act to add a student register and a defined student midwife category, clarify what counts as the practice of midwifery, and tighten who may use midwifery titles. It replaces several registration and disciplinary provisions, requires employers and placement agencies to verify registrations at hire and annually, and obliges them to report terminations for dishonesty, incompetence or incapacity.
The changes matter to regulators, midwifery educators, health employers and midwives themselves: the bill creates a formal pathway and title for students, gives the Council discretion over what temporary registrants may do, expands Council membership parameters, and makes return-to-practice for professionals with out‑of‑province disciplinary findings conditional on Council authorization. Those changes shift compliance responsibilities inward to employers and the Registrar while giving the regulatory body more gatekeeping tools — with operational and workforce implications for practice and recruitment.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill establishes a student register and a ‘student midwife’ status, revises the definition of ‘practice of midwifery’ (including specific limits like low‑risk vaginal deliveries), and makes it an offence to use midwife or student‑midwife titles unless registered. It also requires employers and agencies to verify registration at hire and at least annually and to report terminations for misconduct, and expands Council membership up to 10 members with 1–4 lay persons.
Who It Affects
Midwifery students, licensed midwives (active, temporary, rostered), approved midwifery schools, hospitals and placement agencies, the provincial Registrar and Council, and anyone recruiting or engaging midwifery services in New Brunswick.
Why It Matters
By formalizing a student register and tightening title protection, the bill clarifies who may lawfully practise and claim midwife status, shifting compliance risk to employers and the regulator. Council discretion over temporary registrants and new return‑to‑practice rules for those with external disciplinary records change how the workforce may be mobilized and assessed.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill rewrites core definitions and the structure of registration. It replaces the single midwife definition with categories tied to registers and rosters (active practice, temporary, roster, and a newly created student register).
The statutory definition of the practice of midwifery is narrowed to reproductive health care for people of childbearing age, antenatal, labour and postpartum care for parents, monitoring of healthy infants, and management of low‑risk vaginal deliveries; for temporary registrants the Council may set a narrower list of permitted services, and student midwives may only provide services that are part of their program under direct supervision.
Registration mechanics change: the bill creates a student register (section 20 and added subsection 21(2)), clarifies entitlement to entry on each register subject to statutory and regulatory requirements, repeals section 23 and replaces various registration provisions to streamline who belongs on which list. It also makes title protection categorical: only those in the active practice register, temporary register, roster or student register may use “midwife”, “registered midwife”, “student midwife” or French equivalents, and persons off those lists commit an offence.Discipline and return to practice are tightened for out‑of‑province issues.
A member returning after having disciplinary findings or outstanding complaints from outside New Brunswick must notify the Council and obtain Council authorization before resuming practice. The complaints committee retains powers to require competence or capacity exams; the bill modernizes language around investigators and investigators’ duties, and harmonizes English and French gendered terms to neutral language throughout the Act.Operational duties fall to employers and agencies: anyone engaging a midwife or student midwife (with exceptions for unpaid caregivers) must verify appropriate, current registration at hire and at least annually, ensure engagements do not violate imposed registration restrictions, and report terminations for dishonesty, incompetence or incapacity to the Council without delay.
The Council itself is resized: the membership cap is increased so there can be up to 10 members, and the number of lay persons is set at a minimum of one and a maximum of four who have never practised midwifery.Other amendments are largely administrative and bilingual clean‑ups: changing gendered French phrasing to neutral terms, updating cross‑references (Part II to Part 2), and clarifying Registrar responsibilities and notice provisions. The Act comes into force by proclamation.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill creates a formal student register and the legal title “student midwife”; only names entered there may lawfully hold or use that title (new section 20 and 21(2); section 26.1).
Employers and placement agencies must verify a midwife’s or student midwife’s registration at hire and at least once per year and must report any termination for dishonesty, incompetence or incapacity to the Council without delay (new section 34).
A person not listed in the active practice register, temporary register, roster or student register is prohibited from using midwifery titles or implying they are authorized to practise; the prohibition and related offences are expanded to cover the student title (sections 26, 26.1 and amended sections 82–85).
The Council’s composition is increased to up to 10 members, and it must include between one and four lay persons who have never practised midwifery (amendment to section 5).
Midwives returning from practice outside New Brunswick who have disciplinary findings or outstanding complaints must notify the Council and obtain Council authorization before resuming practice in the Province (replacement of section 24).
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Definitions overhaul: registers and gender‑neutral language
This section replaces the statutory definition of “midwife” with a definition tied to registration categories (active practice register, temporary register, roster) and adds a “student midwife” definition for the student register. It also systematically replaces gendered French references (e.g., sage‑femme) with neutral wording and adjusts definitions for professional misconduct, incapacity and incompetence to align with the member‑focused language. Practically, this recasts regulatory identity from an occupational label to a status driven by registration.
Scope of practice clarified and tiered by registration status
The Act now defines the practice of midwifery in specific terms (reproductive health for people of childbearing age; care during pregnancy, labour and postpartum; monitoring healthy infants; management of low‑risk vaginal deliveries). Crucially, for temporary registrants the Council may determine the specific services they may provide, while student midwives are limited to program‑required clinical tasks under direct supervision. This creates a tiered model where legal scope depends on register placement rather than a single universal scope.
New student register; registration mechanics and title protection
The bill creates a student register and revises entitlement rules so applicants may be entered in the active, temporary, roster or student registers subject to evidence requirements. Section 23 is repealed and the title‑use prohibition is recast: sections 26 and 26.1 make it an offence to practise or hold oneself out as a midwife or student midwife unless the person’s name appears on the relevant register. The regulations power (section 99(d) amended) is expanded to allow the government to set registration qualifications across the four pathways.
Return‑to‑practice after out‑of‑province discipline
The replacement for section 24 prevents a member who had disciplinary findings or outstanding complaints from practising in New Brunswick upon return unless they notify the Council and receive Council authorization. This inserts an express gatekeeping step for mobility cases and makes past external discipline a live issue for re‑entry to the provincial register.
Employer and agency verification and reporting duties
Section 34 imposes two operational duties on anyone who engages a midwife or student midwife (except unpaid patient representatives): ensure at engagement and at least annually that the person has current appropriate registration and is not subject to restrictions contrary to their duties; and report without delay to the Council when engagement is terminated for dishonesty, incompetence or incapacity, supplying a copy of the report to the terminated individual. This creates a statutorily mandated verification and whistleblower‑style reporting pipeline.
Council size and lay representation adjusted
Amendments to section 5 increase the number of Council members from a fixed seven to up to ten and change appointment language to require that practising midwives be sitting members. The bill mandates a minimum of one and a maximum of four lay persons who have never practised midwifery. The change broadens potential Council expertise while preserving public representation.
Capacity and competence exams; investigatory language modernized
The complaints committee maintains the power to require physical, mental or competency exams where incapacity or incompetence is suspected; the Registrar may be ordered to suspend practice pending exams. The bill replaces gendered and possessive phrasing with neutral wording and clarifies investigator appointment and duties language, tightening procedural consistency across English and French versions.
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Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Midwifery students: The student register confers a clear legal status and title (‘student midwife’), which protects supervised clinical learning and clarifies what activities students may legally perform during training.
- Patients and the public: Stricter title protection and employer verification aim to reduce the risk of unqualified or unregistered individuals providing or advertising midwifery services, improving patient safety and traceability.
- Regulator/Council: The Council gains clearer statutory tools — a student register, discretion over temporary registrant scope, expanded membership options and an express re‑entry gate for externally disciplined practitioners — to manage competence and public protection.
- Licensed midwives (with clean records): Practising midwives benefit from clearer boundaries around who may use midwifery titles and from employer obligations that help ensure colleagues are properly registered.
Who Bears the Cost
- Employers and placement agencies: Hospitals, clinics and agencies must implement verification systems, perform annual checks, document compliance and report certain terminations — creating administrative burden and potential liability exposure for failures to report.
- Regulatory administration (Registrar/Council): Maintaining an additional student register, authorizing re‑entry for returning members, and adjudicating added reports and capacity/competence exams will increase workload and likely require more resources or fees.
- Temporary registrants and out‑of‑province returnees: Council discretion to limit services for temporary registrants and the requirement to obtain authorization to resume practice after external discipline may restrict mobility and shorten the scope of practice for some practitioners.
- Individual midwives facing disclosure obligations: Members who have been subject to discipline elsewhere must disclose that history and may be delayed or blocked from resuming practice, which can affect their employment prospects and continuity of care.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between stronger public‑safety controls (title protection, disclosure and re‑entry authorizations, employer reporting) and the need for an accessible, flexible midwifery workforce: measures that tighten gatekeeping reduce risk but also increase administrative friction and may deter or delay qualified practitioners and students from contributing to care where they are needed.
The bill strengthens title protection and regulatory oversight but relies heavily on administrative enforcement. Employers must verify and report, yet the Act does not allocate funding or staffing for the Registrar or Council to scale up registration processing, complaint investigations or re‑entry assessments; without matching resources, the new duties risk becoming paper requirements with slow operational follow‑through.
The student register solves an important clarity problem for education pathways, but it also raises questions about supervision standards, liability insurance for student placements and how educational programs and employers will coordinate proof of eligibility and supervision documentation.
Council discretion over what temporary registrants may practise is a double‑edged sword. It allows tailored permissioning for short‑term or out‑of‑province practitioners, which can protect patients, but it also creates potential inconsistency across cases and facilities — an uneven patchwork of permitted activities that could impede rapid workforce deployment in underserved areas.
Finally, the return‑to‑practice rule for those with out‑of‑province discipline prioritizes public protection but risks deterring experienced practitioners from returning, particularly if the authorization process is opaque or lengthy; that trade‑off will sit uneasily where the province faces midwifery workforce shortages.
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