Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can look into this issue. I know just as MLA, I often get people in my office looking for their income assistance. We tell them to come to check at 1 o'clock. That's often when they come in, maybe a day later. But once the payments are issued, it can take one to three days for them to be processed by the bank. So it could be an issue with that but I will look into this immediately. And the department is listening right now as well, so I'm sure they're frantically looking into it and will send me some information. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm glad to hear that, and I do appreciate that the Minister is responsive. However, it's my understanding that this delay has been caused by changes to the disability payment and as such, people were submitting documents early this week. And so my question is why would we make changes that are then being done right before the next payment as people don't have their money in their accounts as of Friday and that makes me worry that children aren't going to have food, rents aren't going to be paid. You know, I can survive if I don't have money in my bank account; I have credit cards, I can go into debt, but many others don't have that option, and so can the Minister speak to what's going on there? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I'm not aware of any changes that were made at that operational level, and the staff are getting ready to make changes to the system as a whole as we introduce the new income assistance stream for seniors and persons with disabilities so that change should be happening in the next couple of months, few months. But as for a change that happened in the last couple weeks, I'm not aware of that but, as I said, I will look into this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I literally have people telling me they were asked to submit new forms at the beginning of this week so I'm not sure what's going on here. And I do appreciate the Minister needs to look into this. Can the Minister tell us is this also affecting the seniors' payments? I know that sitting here a couple of my colleagues have also indicated to me they've had people reaching out they have not received their money this week. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, again, I have to look into it; I don't have that information. But what I will say is that persons with disabilities and seniors, so people who we don't expect to -- you know, to go back into the workforce, they are often what's called payrolled. So they only have to submit their financial information once every three months, six months, every year perhaps. And so when you don't have to submit, you know, monthly, when it's every 12 months, you know, that could cause issues. People might not be, you know, as familiar with the process if they've only done it, you know, one or two times. So there could be issues with that as well, but I will look into it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do appreciate that this could just be a one-off but given that I'm hearing from my colleagues they are also getting emails of the same, I think this is a glitch or something is happening in the payment system. Can the Minister commit to ensuring that that money for those people is in their bank accounts by the end of the business day today? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, if the money is issued, that's one thing, but I can't control when it's processed through the banks. So if I could will it to happen, I would, but the Minister of Finance has also informed me that she has her staff looking into this to make sure it's not an issue on their end. So we're taking an all-of-government approach to deal with this issue. Thank you.