This bill amends Nova Scotia’s Midwifery Act to make access to midwifery an explicit provincial objective and to push planning toward measurable, zone-level workforce goals. It directs the government (through the Nova Scotia Health Authority) to ensure an adequate number of trained, regulated midwives, to host a midwifery education program in-province, and to align supply with population-based targets.
Beyond targets, the bill forces transparency: the Midwifery Regulatory Council must publish an annual report with detailed supply-and-demand data and external comparisons. It also gives the Minister of Health and Wellness the power to set a timeline — by regulation — for the Health Authority to meet the objectives.
Those choices shift responsibility for planning, data and timelines onto provincial agencies, while leaving funding and enforcement mechanisms unspecified.
At a Glance
What It Does
Makes midwifery access an explicit government objective, creates statutory reporting duties for the Midwifery Regulatory Council, and authorizes the Minister to set timelines for the Nova Scotia Health Authority via regulation. The Act inserts these goals and reporting requirements directly into the Midwifery Act rather than into policy guidance.
Who It Affects
The Nova Scotia Health Authority and the Department of Health and Wellness will carry primary implementation responsibility; the Midwifery Regulatory Council gains new public-reporting duties. Midwives, post‑secondary institutions, and people seeking midwifery care will see planning and transparency changes that could influence service availability and training opportunities.
Why It Matters
The bill turns midwifery access from a planning priority into a statutory objective with explicit data requirements and a pathway for timeline regulation, raising expectations for measurable progress. For planners and compliance officers this creates new reporting metrics and a potential lever — the Minister’s timelines — that could accelerate hiring, education-program development, and resource allocation.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The Act adds a new objective clause to the Midwifery Act, naming the government’s aim to make midwifery services available to everyone who requests them, to host a midwifery education program in Nova Scotia, and to target one midwife per 14,000 residents within each health management zone. Importantly, the language used is “objective of the Government, through the Nova Scotia Health Authority,” which frames these items as statutory goals rather than express, enforceable duties.
That distinction will matter in implementation, budgeting and legal interpretation.
To create a factual basis for planning and public accountability, the bill requires the Midwifery Regulatory Council to publish an annual report that lists the number of midwives (including those who are registered but non‑practising) and the number of clients who gave birth in the preceding year. The reports must include comparisons across Canadian provinces and with OECD countries; that raises immediate data‑compatibility and methodology needs for the Council and the Health Authority.The Minister of Health and Wellness gains authority to make regulations that establish a timeline for the Nova Scotia Health Authority to meet the stated objectives.
The text also amends the Act’s regulation‑making references so the Minister appears alongside the Council in the statutory cross‑references; practically, that allows the Minister to use regulation to turn the objectives into time‑bounded expectations without altering primary legislation. The Act sets an effective date of January 1, 2027, giving roughly nine months for the province to prepare regulations and for agencies to adjust reporting and planning processes.Operationally, the measure creates three implementation pathways to watch: (1) how the Health Authority translates a population ratio into hiring and deployment plans by management zone, (2) how post‑secondary institutions and the province build or approve an in‑province midwifery education program to grow the workforce, and (3) how the Council and Health Authority agree on definitions and data standards to produce province‑by‑province and OECD comparisons that are meaningful and defensible.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Act makes three statutory objectives: ensure midwifery services for everyone who requests them, establish an in‑province midwifery education program, and aim for one midwife per 14,000 residents in each health management zone.
The Midwifery Regulatory Council must publish an annual public report showing the number of midwives (including registered but non‑practising) and the number of midwifery clients who gave birth in the previous year.
Annual reports must include comparative data across Canadian provinces and comparisons with Organisation for Economic Co‑operation and Development (OECD) countries.
The Minister of Health and Wellness may, by regulation, set a timeline requiring the Nova Scotia Health Authority to achieve the Act’s objectives; the Act amends the regulation‑making cross‑references to list the Minister alongside the Council.
The Act takes effect January 1, 2027.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Short title
Declares the Act’s short title as the Access to Midwifery Care Act. Mechanically simple, but the short title signals the Legislature’s intent to reframe the Midwifery Act around access and workforce objectives — useful context for regulators and agencies aligning internal documents and public communications.
Statutory objectives: availability, education, and a population ratio
Inserts a new Section 1A that states three objectives for the Government — via Nova Scotia Health —: make midwifery services available to those who request them; ensure an in‑province midwifery education program; and aim for one midwife per 14,000 residents in each health management zone. Practically, this creates a clear planning target for workforce and education policy. Legally, the text uses “objective,” which is less prescriptive than duties or entitlements; agencies will need to translate that objective language into operational plans, budgets and performance indicators if they want to show compliance with legislative intent.
Annual public reporting requirements for the Regulatory Council
Adds mandatory annual public reporting duties for the Midwifery Regulatory Council. Reports must list total midwives — specifically including those registered but currently non‑practising — and the number of clients of midwives who gave birth the prior year. The report must also include province‑by‑province comparison data and OECD country comparisons. That combination ties local supply figures to both internal Canadian baselines and international benchmarks, which raises immediate methodological work: harmonizing definitions, deciding which OECD comparators to use, and creating transparent data‑quality statements.
Minister can set timelines by regulation; regulation‑making cross‑references expanded
Authorizes the Minister of Health and Wellness to make regulations that establish a timeline for the Nova Scotia Health Authority to achieve the stated objectives. The bill also amends the Act’s regulation‑making cross‑references to name the Minister alongside the Council. The upshot: the Minister can use regulation — a secondary legislative tool — to impose time‑bound expectations on the Health Authority without amending primary legislation. How prescriptive those timelines become, and whether they are paired with funding or enforcement mechanisms, will hinge on subsequent regulations and budget decisions.
Effective date
Sets the Act to come into force on January 1, 2027. That creates a defined planning window for the Minister, the Health Authority and the Regulatory Council to prepare regulations, reporting templates, data‑sharing arrangements and any education program approvals necessary to begin meeting both reporting and planning expectations.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on this topic across all five countries.
Explore this topic in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- People seeking midwifery care — The statutory objective and required public reporting increase visibility of midwifery services and create a planning hook the Health Authority can use to expand access where demand exists.
- Midwifery students and prospective trainees — The requirement for an in‑province education program opens the door to more local training slots and reduced barriers to entering the profession in Nova Scotia.
- Health system planners and researchers — Mandated, standardized annual reports with provincial and OECD comparisons provide new, regular datasets to inform workforce modelling and policy evaluation.
- Rural and underserved communities (potentially) — Zone‑level ratio targets create a planning lever to prioritize hiring or service deployment in under‑served management zones if the Health Authority implements allocations accordingly.
Who Bears the Cost
- Nova Scotia Health Authority — Responsible for translating objectives into hiring, deployment and service models; hiring and operating costs of more midwives fall primarily on the Health Authority and the provincial budget.
- Department of Health and Wellness / Minister’s Office — Drafting and consulting on regulations setting timelines, and managing the political and operational fallout from any shortfalls, requires staff time and policy capacity.
- Post‑secondary institutions and clinical sites — Establishing an accredited in‑province midwifery education program demands curriculum development, faculty hiring, practicum placements and possible capital or operational investment.
- Midwifery Regulatory Council — Will need resources to collect new comparative data, define methodologies for OECD/provincial comparisons, and publish robust public reports; reporting obligations increase administrative load.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between clarity and enforceability: the Act sets clear, measurable expectations (a population ratio, an education program, routine reporting and timelines) designed to drive expansion of midwifery services, but it couches them as objectives and leaves funding and enforcement to future regulations and budget decisions — creating pressure to deliver measurable results without providing the legislative tools or money to guarantee them.
The legislation binds the province to visible objectives and reporting but stops short of attaching funding, enforcement, or clear operational definitions. That raises three implementation frictions.
First, the text uses non‑binding objective language rather than mandatory duties; agencies can treat the objectives as guidance unless the Minister’s forthcoming regulations introduce enforceable timelines or consequences. Second, the bill counts “registered but non‑practising” midwives in supply figures while separately counting clients who gave birth; those two measures pull in different directions when assessing capacity — the former may overstate available capacity, the latter reflects demand — so the Council and Health Authority must agree on presentation and interpretation to avoid misleading comparisons.
Third, the requirement for province‑by‑province and OECD comparisons creates methodological headaches: birthcare definitions, scope of practice, certification standards and what counts as a midwife vary across jurisdictions. Producing defensible international comparisons will require explicit methodology notes and likely additional data‑collection arrangements.
Finally, the bill empowers the Minister to set timelines by regulation but contains no financing clause; timelines without funding risk prompting rushed hiring or program approvals that could compromise training quality or create temporary staffing mismatches.
There's more to this law than the bill.
Codify Laws traces every connection across the legislative lifecycle.