Disability support issues continued despite gov’t claims

Posted on August 27, 2026 by Vauxhall Advance

By Zoe Mason
Southern Alberta Newspapers

Despite assurances from the province that errors would be corrected before the August long weekend, AISH and ADAP clients waited for benefit payments well into August, and some report still missing funds.

A significant number of clients of Alberta’s two disability benefit programs received incorrect payments or failed to receive a payment at all for the month of August.

Theresa Blask, a single mother in Edmonton, says she didn’t receive her payment until Aug. 7, almost 10 days after it usually comes in. She says she had to arrange a loan from a family member to meet her car payment and contact her landlord to request an extension on rent.

“It’s crazy,” she told Southern Alberta Newspapers. “It’s embarrassing to tell your landlord that you don’t have the money from AISH, from the government.”

“I have a 15-year-old daughter, and we’re on a tight budget. So it was really bad, very stressful.”

Blask says she spent two days on the phone before she was able to get through to an AISH operator and have her payment rectified.

Around 80,000 Albertans were on AISH prior to the transition. As of July 1, 46,000 were transitioned to ADAP.

Opposition NDP shadow critic Marie Renaud estimates thousands of Albertans were impacted by the payment error.

“Some people were shorted $400, some people only got $400. People staying on AISH called me who got nothing, zero deposit. So it was just all over the place,” she told Southern Alberta Newspapers earlier this month.

Press secretary for the Ministry of Assisted Living and Social Services Jonah Pickle told the Red Deer Advocate earlier this month that the issue had been resolved and “any payment issues were corrected in full” prior to end of day July 29.

In a separate statement to CBC, Pickle offered a different deadline.

“We know how important these benefits are to the people (who) depend on them, which is why we’re ensuring all payment issues are corrected in full by July 31, 2026,” he said.

A statement to Southern Alberta Newspapers claimed payments were issued in full prior to end-of-day July 29. The statement later says payments were issued in full by Aug. 1.

The ministry says a small number of delays were attributable to missing information that was not provided by clients rather than the system error. The ministry says it is working directly with those clients to resolve that issue.

The ministry blames remaining missing payments on bank processing times.

Pickle has claimed to media roughly two per cent of AISH clients were impacted by the technical system error. Renaud says based on the volume of complaints reaching her office, she thinks the number is much higher.

As recently as the week of Aug. 10 – two weeks after the self-imposed deadline communicated by the ministry – Renaud says she has received two additional requests for help from clients who have still not received their August benefit.

“It’s right back to the same MO – they just lie,” said Renaud of the government.

For individuals already dealing with mental illness or poverty, it can be an overwhelming setback. Renaud says her office has received numerous calls from distraught clients.

“It’s just one thing after another. It’s just been unyielding stress for them by not knowing what’s happening, not understanding what’s happening, and we’re hearing that more and more. People talk about MAiD. And it has just escalated.”

Renaud says the transition has also created other technical issues. For example, some clients who used AISH’s trustee system to automate their rent payments did not have that service transitioned when their file moved to ADAP, leaving rents unpaid.

Blask, who was on AISH for seven years prior to the transition, says she doesn’t understand who the change is designed to help.

“Why are they doing this? It’s hurting the most vulnerable people.”