Bill 18 amends four Yukon statutes to formally fold registered midwives into several administrative and public‑health regimes. It inserts a standard definition of “registered midwife” in the Interpretation Act; adds registered midwives to the Care Consent Act’s list of primary care providers in emergency contexts; permits qualified registered midwives to provide certificates supporting maternity and pregnancy‑related leave under the Employment Standards Act; and expands the Public Health and Safety Act’s list of professionals who may be subject to communicable‑disease reporting regulations.
Those are mostly technical fixes that remove legal ambiguity about who can certify maternity leave and who counts as a primary care provider or reportable professional. The practical effect is administrative: employers, public‑health authorities and regulators will need to accept midwife documentation, update forms and procedures, and consider training and oversight to put the changes into effect.
The bill does not itself alter clinical scope-of-practice rules, which remain governed by the Health Professions Act and midwifery regulation.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill inserts a Yukon‑wide statutory definition of “registered midwife” and amends four acts so registered midwives appear in specific lists and definitions. It authorizes qualified registered midwives to provide certificates for maternity and pregnancy‑related leave and makes them eligible to be designated in communicable‑disease reporting regulations.
Who It Affects
Directly affected parties include registered midwives and their regulator under the Health Professions Act, employers who process maternity‑leave requests, territorial public‑health authorities that design reporting regimes, and primary‑care settings where emergency consent rules apply. Indirectly it affects insurers, hospitals and community health clinics that interact with midwifery services.
Why It Matters
By removing statutory gaps the bill reduces administrative friction (for example, contested maternity‑leave certificates) and clarifies which professionals Territorial regulators and employers must treat as primary care providers or potential reporters. That clarity changes everyday compliance tasks even though it leaves clinical authority and licensing to existing regulators.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
This bill is a set of targeted, cross‑statute amendments aimed at making midwives a recognized, administratively integrated part of Yukon’s health and employment framework. First, it creates a consistent, territorial definition of “registered midwife” by tying the term to entitlement under the Health Professions Act.
That single definitional anchor means the same phrase will carry the same legal meaning across Yukon statutes, avoiding patchwork interpretations.
Second, the change to the Care Consent Act treats registered midwives as primary care providers in the narrow context of emergency consent provisions. Practically, that makes midwives equivalent to other listed primary caregivers when decisions must be made quickly or when consent rules depend on the provider’s status.Third, amendments to the Employment Standards Act add a new defined term—“qualified registered midwife”—and alter the statutory text that lists which health professionals may provide certificates supporting maternity leave and pregnancy‑related medical leave.
Employers that rely on the statute to validate leave requests will therefore need to accept midwife‑issued certificates that meet whatever documentary standards the Regulation or employer policy requires.Finally, the Public Health and Safety Act change inserts primary health care nurses and registered midwives into the roster of professionals who can be subject to regulatory reporting obligations for communicable diseases. The amendment does not itself impose a reporting duty; it permits the executive to include midwives in regulations that require reporting, which will in turn shape midwives’ operational responsibilities and any recordkeeping or notification workflows they must adopt.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Interpretation Act gains a new statutory definition: “registered midwife” means a person entitled to practise as a registered midwife in Yukon under the Health Professions Act.
The Care Consent Act’s emergency‑care list is amended to include registered midwives alongside other primary care providers in subsection 63(1).
The Employment Standards Act gets a new defined term, “qualified registered midwife,” and section 36 is changed so midwives can provide certificates supporting maternity leave and pregnancy‑related medical leave.
The Public Health and Safety Act’s list of professionals in subparagraph 2(a)(i) is expanded to allow regulations to impose communicable‑disease reporting obligations on primary health care nurses and registered midwives.
These are administrative integrations rather than changes to clinical licensing: the bill relies on the Health Professions Act to determine who qualifies as a registered midwife, leaving clinical scope and regulatory discipline with existing professional regulation.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Counts registered midwives as primary care providers for emergency consent
The amendment inserts the phrase “registered midwife” into subsection 63(1) of the Care Consent Act so that, for the Act’s emergency‑consent and primary‑care rules, midwives sit in the same category as nurses and other listed providers. Practically this means that in urgent care situations or when legal consequences flow from who is identified as a primary caregiver, midwives will be treated under the statute the same way as other registered primary providers—reducing disputes about who may act or be recognized in those contexts.
Allows midwives to issue maternity and pregnancy‑related leave certificates
Section 4 adds a definition for “qualified registered midwife” tied to entitlement to practise in Yukon; section 5 rewrites parts of section 36 so that certificate‑provision language explicitly includes qualified registered midwives. The immediate compliance implication falls on employers and payroll/HR units: they must accept properly issued certificates from midwives where the statute conditions certificate acceptance. Employers and tribunals will need clear internal rules on what constitutes an acceptable midwife certificate (content, timing, format) because the bill authorizes the issuer but does not prescribe documentary standards.
Creates a territory‑wide statutory definition of “registered midwife”
By inserting a uniform definition into the Interpretation Act, the bill ensures that every Yukon statute that uses the phrase “registered midwife” refers back to the same legal meaning—specifically, entitlement under the Health Professions Act. That design centralizes definitional authority, so subsequent statutes can rely on one reference point. The practical follow‑up task is administrative: regulators and departments must align their forms, guidance and subordinate instruments with that definition.
Permits regulations to impose communicable‑disease reporting duties on midwives
The bill replaces a short list element in subparagraph 2(a)(i) so the statutory roster now includes primary health care nurses and registered midwives. The amendment does not itself create reporting duties; rather, it authorizes the executive to draft regulations that could require midwives to report specific communicable diseases. That creates a pathway for public‑health authorities to fold midwives into surveillance and notification systems, but the details—timing, thresholds, protections for patient privacy—will come later in regulation.
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
- Registered midwives — receive formal territorial recognition and a clear, statute‑linked definition that reduces ambiguity about their administrative authority (for example, issuing leave certificates).
- Pregnant employees who use midwifery care — gain wider acceptance of midwife‑issued maternity and pregnancy‑related medical certificates when applying for statutory leave.
- Territorial public‑health officials — gain the legal flexibility to include midwives in disease‑reporting regimes, which can improve surveillance in community and out‑of‑hospital birth settings.
- Regulators under the Health Professions Act — benefit from a single definitional standard that simplifies cross‑statute enforcement and guidance drafting.
- Employers and HR administrators — benefit from clearer statutory guidance on which professionals may validate leave, reducing contested leave determinations.
Who Bears the Cost
- Registered midwives — may face new administrative and reporting duties (documentation, notifications, recordkeeping) without concurrent funding or training, increasing workload.
- Yukon Health and Social Services and public‑health units — must draft, consult on and implement regulations, guidance and IT/reporting interfaces to include midwives in surveillance systems.
- Employers and payroll/HR departments — must update policies and processes to accept midwife‑issued certificates and may need to adjudicate borderline cases, increasing short‑term compliance work.
- The Health Professions regulator — must confirm registrant status against a new statutory definition and may need to update licensing records and public guidance.
- Insurers and liability carriers — may need to reassess coverage language and rates if midwives take on additional statutory reporting or administrative responsibilities.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill trades legal clarity and formal recognition of midwives for additional administrative responsibilities: it makes midwifery a clearly integrated part of Yukon’s statutory framework while leaving the heavy lifting of defining operational standards, funding compliance, and managing liability to regulators and subordinate regulation—a trade‑off between recognition and unfunded regulatory burden.
The bill focuses on statutory alignment and administrative inclusion rather than on changing licensing or clinical practice standards, but that very focus creates implementation questions the text leaves unresolved. For example, the Employment Standards Act change authorizes midwives to issue certificates but does not set content, verification or timing requirements; absent regulatory or policy guidance, employers and adjudicators will develop inconsistent practices.
Similarly, allowing the executive to impose reporting obligations by regulation is efficient, but it concentrates important policy choices—what diseases, what timelines, what confidentiality protections—into subordinate instruments that may face less public scrutiny than primary legislation.
Another practical tension involves workload and resources. Integrating midwives into reporting and certification regimes shifts administrative and potentially legal duties onto a workforce that operates largely in community settings; the bill does not include funding, training, or liability‑management measures.
That raises real questions about whether midwives (especially sole practitioners or small clinics) will be able to absorb new responsibilities without changes to compensation, recordkeeping systems, or indemnity coverage.
There's more to this law than the bill.
Codify Laws traces every connection across the legislative lifecycle.