Proposed Bylaw Changes July 2020

July 16, 2020

We Need Your Feedback

Council approved circulating these proposed Bylaw changes for you to review. Note that we only included the changes. You can see our current Bylaws here.

Email your feedback to us at contact@abrda.ca by August 17, 2020.

We will give your feedback to the Governance and Nominations Committee. Next, the Committee will consider your feedback and, as appropriate, will make recommendations to Council about adjustments to the proposed changes.

Why are we making these changes?

COUNCIL COMPOSITION

Bill 30 – the Health Statutes Amendment Act was introduced in the Legislature by the Minister of Health on July 6. This bill amends several health-related statutes including the Health Professions Act (the HPA). The amendment to the HPA increases the requirement for public members appointed by government on councils, hearing tribunals, complaint review committees and appeal panels from 25% to 50%.

Our current Council, when fully constituted, is 12 members: 9 regulated members and 3 public members. To meet the provisions of the HPA amendments we envision a Council of 10 members: 5 regulated members and 5 public members. This allows for diversity of experience, background and opinion without becoming unwieldy or unmanageable.

As such, to ensure public member and regulated member councillor rights and privileges are equal, where possible, we are also proposing public member councillors be eligible to hold officer positions on Council.

COUNCIL ELIGIBILITY CHANGE

We’re recommending a change to the eligibility of regulated members for election to Council as well. Our current Bylaws require that regulated members must be in good standing. Adding “with active practice permits” will help make it clear that practicing dental assistants are needed on Council.

COMMITTEE CHANGES

While the Bylaws are open for revision, we’d also like to establish a Program Approval Committee, due to the increasing number of applications for program approval, and to allow for non-member persons on committees to be appointed as the chair of a committee.

Your Opinion Matters

Any changes to the Bylaws may impact the governance of the College. Your input on these proposed changes is important to us. We want to understand the full implications of our proposed changes.

Once the Bylaw amendments are finalized and approved by the Council, they will be posted on our website and we will let all dental assistants know by email.

Current date: October 5, 2024

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