Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Justice responsible for the maintenance enforcement program.
My statement outlined the complexities of adjusting the amount of maintenance enforcement payments and the difficulties of enacting these changes. The Minister told me that an automatic adjustment regime would be coming into place at the beginning of the year. Can the Minister tell me the status of this improvement? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And like many things over the past two years, it's a story of delays. We were initially waiting for the federal government to make changes to one of their acts, the Divorce Act, which they did, then there was a federal election which meant that our discussions with the federal government on using a recalculation service under the Divorce Act were delayed. But we've restarted those and we've made significant progress, and so while we didn't hit the January 1st deadline, we're hoping by April 1st to have the draft regulations posted for public comment, and I expect that we'll get some good feedback on that. And as soon as we review those comments and see if there's any adjustments needed, we hope to be able to put these into force. However, we do need to still work with the federal government and ensure that there's an MOU in place so that we can use this for situations under the Divorce Act. Thank you.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. The sooner the better. Of course, it's one thing for the changes to be made and another for those affected to be informed. So what activities does the department plan to carry out, first, to identify those maintenance orders affected by the change; and secondly, to inform child support payment recipients that a new regime of annual payment recalculation is being introduced? Sorry, Mr. Speaker. Those are questions for the Minister. Mahsi.
Thank you. So those wishing to use the service will have to apply. It won't not everyone will be able to use the service. There are parameters. There are certain criteria that people will have to meet. But we will have a broad information campaign through social media through all we will update all of our family law publications, the website. The information will be distributed by legal aid lawyers through we'll distribute it to the Law Society so that all lawyers have that information, can distribute it to their clients. So every way we can get the information out, we are going to get the information out. Thank you.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that and, of course, we're starting to get the word out right now.
Obviously, delays in receiving child support payments can have serious consequences for wellbeing of children. I've dealt with my instances of money paid to or some of these cases myself for my constituents where constituents have not been paid promptly.
Can the Minister say what provisions are in place to treat instances such as emergencies and takes swift action to recover and disburse payments for child support? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So most payments, once they're in the system, are swift. 95 percent of the maintenance enforcement clients receive their funds through direct deposit. There's sometimes situations where one of the parties might be outside of the territory and in those instances, we have legislation, and other jurisdictions have complementary legislation, whereby we cooperate. And all jurisdictions in Canada, except for Quebec, also use direct deposit. So there may be delays in some situations, particularly when one of the individuals is living in Quebec. But for the most part, funds are processed within a day. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I got so excited, I jumped ahead one question. So I know that the Minister I'll just have to surprise him right now.
But I'm just wondering if there's any kind of annual reporting or tracking of how long it takes for these crossjurisdictional payments to be made for child support? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have that information. But I will I can get back to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
