1. This Act may be cited as the Vital Statistics Act.

2. (1) All births, marriages and deaths that take place within this province shall be registered in a public register to be kept in the city of St. John's.

3. There shall be a chief officer appointed to carry out this Act, to be called the Registrar General, who shall have charge of the public registry.

4. (1) Members of the clergy and other persons baptizing, celebrating marriage or performing funeral services in this province shall keep an accurate register of all persons whom he or she has baptized, married or buried.

5. Notices of all births, marriages and deaths that take place in this province shall be given within the times provided in section 7 to a registering officer appointed under this Act.

6. (1) All clergy and other persons legally licensed to baptize, celebrate marriage, or perform funeral services in this province shall be "registering officers", and the limits of their duties under this Act shall be the same as those assigned them by ecclesiastical authority.

7. (1) The registering officers shall forward, quarterly, to the Registrar General a copy of the registers kept by them of all births and deaths of which they have received notice from the date of their last report to the Registrar General.

8. When

9. The Registrar General shall

10. (1) Information concerning a birth in the province shall be provided within 48 hours to the proper officer appointed under this Act to receive the information.

11. Either of the parents, or the guardian, or other person, who may have procured the registry of the birth of a child, shall be entitled to receive from the registering officer a certificate of that registry upon payment of a fee of $0.50.

12. (1) Where a woman gives birth to a child and the father is a person to whom she is not married, a person shall not be registered as the father of the child unless the mother and the person acknowledging himself to be the father jointly request it.

13. (1) When a death takes place in this province, information of the death shall be provided within 48 hours to the proper officer appointed under this Act to receive the information, in the form in Schedule A.

14. (1) On receiving information of a death, the registering officer may provide a written statement setting out the date and place of death, the name, age and sex of the deceased, and the cause of death, as nearly as can be ascertained and cause it to be signed by the medical attendant or undertaker, or, failing these, by some other credible person who witnessed the death, or identified the body after death.

15. A sexton or other person having charge of a cemetery or burial place, shall not permit the burial of a person in the cemetery, or burial place without first having received a certificate signed by a medical attendant, a member of the clergy, or 2 reliable persons cognizant of the facts, certifying to the death of the person for whom burial is required, and setting out, so far as is known the cause of death and the certificates shall be forwarded monthly to the registering officers concerned.

16. (1) Officials in charge of hospitals, orphanages, jails, and other public institutions, shall send notice of a birth, marriage or death that occurs within the institutions under their charge within 10 days.

17. The Registrar General, or other registering officer, shall use every available means to obtain a full and accurate account of all births, marriages and deaths that take place in the province, and shall provide a notice in the form of Schedule B in all cases where he or she has reason to believe that the necessary information has not been supplied to him or her.

18. The Minister of Health may register, in a registry to be kept for that purpose, the birth of a person who was born in or outside of the province where the minister is satisfied that it is desirable to do so and that the person is unable otherwise to obtain a birth certificate.

19. A person wishing to register his or her birth shall submit the proof of the date of birth that may be required by the Minister of Health.

20. A person who has procured the registry of his or her birth under section 18 shall be entitled to receive from the Minister of Health or the person that may be appointed by him or her for that purpose a certificate of that registry as if the person were born in the province and his or her birth was registered in accordance with another section of this Act and that registration and certificate shall have the same effect.

21. The registrations made before the passing of this Act are hereby declared as valid and binding as if they had been made thereunder.

22. (1) All registering officers who shall forward to the Registrar General extracts from the registers kept by them of births and deaths occurring in their locality, shall be entitled to be paid for the notice at the rate of $20 for each 100 events registered.

23. A person who makes, for the purpose of being inserted in a register of births, marriages or deaths a false statement concerning the particulars required to be registered, or who alters or defaces a return or register, shall be subject to the same penalties as if that person were guilty of wilful and corrupt perjury.

24. A person who sends to a newspaper publisher or other person, for publication in a newspaper in this province, a fictitious or false statement of the marriage or death of a person, or the birth of a child, is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine or imprisonment at the discretion of the Trial Division.

25. Every proprietor, editor or publisher of a newspaper published in this province, who knowingly and wilfully publishes a fictitious or false statement of the marriage or death of a person, or of the birth of a child, is guilty of an offence, and is liable on summary conviction to a fine or imprisonment at the discretion of the Trial Division.

26. (1) A person during office hours, upon payment of fees prescribed under subsection (2),

27. Certificates of births, marriages and deaths shall be exact copies of the registers, and shall be signed and certified by the registering officers.