Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to introduce Bill 4, An Act to Amend the Child and Family Services Act. The proposed amendments to the act are technical housekeeping changes required to clarify provisions already established in the act. The amendments include:
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ensuring the current confidentiality provisions apply to all persons who have access to child protection files, including casuals, clerical, and those who are not directly involved in child care matters, such as information technology services and custodial staff;
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renaming the various ‘plan of care’
terminology, thereby clearly distinguishing each term from the other;
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a correction in the child apprehension timeline, thereby restoring the timeline to the originally intended number of days; and
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changing the process for obtaining a subpoena as well as an exemption under the ‘duty to report’ requirements for those informed of a child needing protection during the course of a judicial proceeding, thereby eliminating any possible expense, inconvenience and unnecessary work that is required when these incidents do occur.
All other recommendations before you, Mr. Chairman, are of a miscellaneous nature and are proposed in order to update the act.
That concludes my opening comments. Thank you.