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Changes
→Two important statutes, one important regulation and one influential paper
Every now and then the government reorganizes all the laws it has made into one set of books, sorting the laws alphabetically. When that happens, SBC is replaced by '''RSBC''', which stands for the "Revised Statutes of British Columbia," and the law gets a new chapter number. The old ''Family Relations Act'', the law the ''Family Law Act'' replaced, first became law in 1978. However, the statutes of British Columbia were consolidated in 1996, and when that happened, the title of the ''Family Relations Act'' became the '''''Family Relations Act'', RSBC 1996, c. 128'''.
Other provinces and the federal government follow the same pattern. The title of Alberta's ''Family Law Act'' is the ''Family Law Act'', SA 2003, c. F-4.5 (Statutes of Alberta, 2003, chapter F-4.5) and the title of the ''Divorce Act'' is the ''Divorce Act'', RSC 1985, c. 3 (2nd Supp.) (Revised Statutes of Canada, of 1985, chapter 3, second supplement).
The individual rules in a statute are broken down into numbered paragraphs, called '''sections'''. This helps people identify the specific rule they are talking about. This is section 23 of the ''Family Law Act'':
<blockquote><tt>(2) For the purposes of an instrument or enactment that refers to a person, described in terms of his or her relationship to another person by birth, blood or marriage, the reference must be read as a reference to, and read to include, a person who comes within the description because of the relationship of parent and child as determined under this Part.</tt></blockquote>
You'll see that this rule is broken down into smaller rules. Those are called '''subsections'''. If someone was talking about the last part of section 23, they would say "section 23, subsection 2" or "section 23 sub 2." In writing, you would say put "section 23(2)." (Just as ''chapter'' is abbreviated as '''c.''', ''section'' is abbreviated as '''s.''' If we are talking about more than one section, ''sections'' is abbreviated as '''ss.''' ''Subsection'' is abbreviated as '''s-s.''' and the plural is written as '''s-ss.''')
Long statutes like the ''Family Law Act'' sometimes have their subject matter broken into big chunks called '''parts'''. In the ''Family Law Act'', Part 3 is titled "Parentage" and has all of the rules about deciding who the parents of a child are. Part 4 is titled "Care of and Time with Children" and has all the rules about parenting children. Long parts are sometimes broken into smaller chunks called '''divisions'''. Part 4 of the ''Family Law Act'' includes Division 2: Parenting Arrangements and Division 3: Guardianship. Part 4, Division 2 has all of the rules about parental responsibilities, parenting time and contact, while Part 4, Division 3 has all the rules about appointing and removing people as the guardians of a child.