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→The Divorce Act, decision-making responsibility and parenting time
The ''Divorce Act'' talks about parenting after separation in terms of married spouses who have "decision-making responsibility" for their children and have "parenting time" with their children. The ''Divorce Act'' started using this language on 1 March 2021. Before then, the ''Divorce Act'' talked about married spouses who had "custody" of their children and "access" to their children. The new language focuses more on the interests of children than the rights of parents, and is very similar to the language used by the ''Family Law Act''.
''Decision-making responsibilities'' are the responsibilities parents have to make important decisions on behalf of their children, about things like where the children go to school, how they're treated when they get sick and which sorts of extracurricular activities they'll participate in. Under the old ''Divorce Act'', people with custody had the responsibility for making decisions like these. Decision-making responsibility under the ''Divorce Act'' is a lot like "parental responsibilities" under the ''Family Law Act''." (People other than married spouses may be able to ask for decision-making responsibilities when there's already a court proceeding under the ''Divorce Act''.)
''Parenting time'' is the schedule of the time that each parent has with their children. Under the old ''Divorce Act'', we talked about the children's schedule in terms of "access," but "access" only referred to the schedule of the parent who saw the children the least. Parenting time under the ''Divorce Act'' means almost exactly the same thing as "parental time" under the ''Family Law Act''. (People other than married spouses may be able to ask for parenting time when there's already a court proceeding under the ''Divorce Act''.)