Montrealers braved the rain on Sunday (Oct. 22) to protest the proposed Bill 15's changes to midwifery in the province.

Bill 15 is Health Minister Christian Dubé’s restructuring of Quebec’s healthcare system under a new government agency, Santé Quebec. Some of the biggest changes include the consolidation of healthcare unions and introduction of new managers to provincial healthcare centres. The minister says the changes will streamline the network and improve quality of care. Opponents say it’s more about consolidating power.

The risks are felt keenly by midwives, who were only legalized in Quebec in 1999 after a long legal battle. Already a minority among healthcare practitioners, midwives could now find their professional authority limited by new facility managers and cross-profession councils.

Josyane Giroux, midwife and president of the Regroupement Les Sages-femmes du Québec, says midwives give parents more options when giving birth, explaining potential risks and being there in a way that most doctors can't. She's concerned that these options could be limited under Bill 15, as more standards of practice and accountability bodies move beyond midwives' hands.

"The thing that is most important for us is really to encourage women to make decisions," she says. "If we bring doctors [to] the table, not having this way of working... it may look [to them] like we're not doing our work the right way."

While midwives often work with other healthcare practitioners, Giroux says there's still a lot of stigma around the woman-dominated profession.

"The government is not very comfortable with our professional autonomy.... I can only go back to the fact that we're working for women."

Listen to the full interview below: