 Hello, my name is Erin Smith. I'm a senior policy analyst with the Family Policy, Legislation and Transformation Division in the BC Ministry of Attorney General. In this webinar, I will provide a brief introduction to the new Provincial Court Family Rules, which will apply to family law cases in Provincial Court, effective May 17th, 2021. This webinar is one of a series of recorded presentations which provide information about family law cases in BC Provincial Court. Before I begin, I would like to respectfully acknowledge that I am presenting from the traditional territory of the Laquanguan people, including the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations, who have been stewards of this area for many generations. On May 17th, 2021, the Provincial Court Family Rules will be repealed and replaced fully with the Provincial Court Family Rules. The new rules will replace all the existing court forms and will introduce some new technology and new processes. Of note, the notice of motion form will be replaced by a series of subject-specific application forms and the first court appearance for family law matters will be replaced by a family management conference. The new Provincial Court Family Rules are designed to help families to reduce conflict and work towards an earlier, more collaborative resolution, keeping the children's best interests front and center. The rules aim to help clarify and narrow issues if they aren't fully resolved during early resolution and prepare people proceeding to court. The rules introduce process-specific forms developed to enable people to tell the court their story in a meaningful way to obtain the orders they need and introduce a family management conference as the first step in court proceedings about family law matters to provide active case management and meaningful, better utilized court appearances. Priority matters, including protection orders, have distinct processes and forms to provide proportional processes and to be able to address those applications in a timely manner. The new rules identify three different types of court registries. Depending on the type of registry, there are different requirements that must be completed for an application about a family law matter. A family law matter means a case about parenting arrangements, including parental responsibilities and parenting time, child support, contact with a child, guardianship of a child, and spousal support. Rule six describes which parts of the rules apply only in certain registries. New to these rules are the early resolution registries which are currently designated as Surrey and Victoria. Surrey and Victoria were early adopters of the early resolution registry aspects of the new rules effective December 7th, 2020. The early resolution registry requirements for family law matters are participation in an individual needs assessment with a family justice counselor, completion of a parenting education program if applicable, and participation in a consensual dispute resolution session if appropriate. Additional early resolution registries are anticipated to be designated under the rules as services are funded to support them. Family justice registries continue the existing rule five services and requirements in Kelowna, Nanaimo, and Robson Square. The requirements for family law matters and family justice registries are participation in an individual needs assessment with a family justice counselor and completion of a parenting education program if applicable. Parenting education program registries continue the existing rule 21 parenting after separation requirements for family law matters at the same registries designated under the existing rules. All other court registries, those that are not specifically an early resolution registry, family justice registry, or parenting education registry, have no additional requirements for applications about a family law matter. All provincial court registries will be using the new rules and forms effective May 17th, 2021. Surrey and Victoria as early adopters of the early resolution registry aspects of the new rules and forms on December 7th, 2020 are both well positioned for the transition. They are already using the new forms have eliminated the notice of motion and are using the family management conference as the first court appearance. On May 17th, 2021, they will be adopting the remainder of the wraparound rules. Family justice managers, a defined decision maker under these new rules is not being implemented anywhere at this time. While the rules enable the use of a family justice manager in specific circumstances in lieu of a judge, none have been appointed at this time. Informal trials, which are described under part nine, division five of the rules are scheduled to be implemented in May, 2022 to allow for the transition first to the other new rules and processes. The rules about the transition from the old rules are set out in part 13 of the new rules. In a nutshell, the transition say that any case which starts before May, 2021 will carry on using the new rules, forms and processes wherever they previously left off. Old court forms will not be accepted as of May 17th, 2021 with the exception of a 30 day period for the reply and the financial statement. The old versions of those forms can continue to be filed up to June 16th, 2021. For more information, please see the new Provincial Court Family Rules themselves, which are available at the first link listed on this slide. The new court forms are also available and can be viewed in the appendix to BC Reg, 120, 2020, which is the second link on this slide. It should also be noted that Surrey and Victoria began using Surrey Victoria specific versions of the new family forms in December, 2020 as part of the early resolution and case management model in place at those locations. The Surrey Victoria specific versions of the forms are available on the Provincial Family Forms page until May 16th, 2021. Starting on May 17th, 2021, all Provincial Court locations, including Surrey and Victoria will begin using the same province-wide versions of the new forms. The province-wide version of the new forms will be available on the Provincial Family Forms page as of May 17th, 2021. For more information before May 17th, 2021, you may also want to review the Provincial Court Family Rules explained. This document provides a rule-by-rule explanation of the new Provincial Court Family Rules. After May 17th, 2021, both the BC government and the BC Provincial Court Family Pages will provide information about the new rules. Legal Aid BC and Click Law will also provide updated information about the family law process in Provincial Court after May 17th, 2021. Thank you for viewing this presentation. Please check YouTube for other presentations in this series about family law cases in BC Provincial Court.