Child support delinquents face Justice Department crackdown

The Justice Department is cracking down on parents who are behind on their support payments.

The auditor general's report said $11 million was owed to P.E.I. parents and over the last three weeks efforts have been made to collect some of it.

The move comes after Jane MacAdam said maintenance enforcement wasn't doing enough to collect the money and about 70 per cent of case files werein arrears.

On Wednesday, Wade MacLauchlan, as minister of justice, told the legislature the department is lowering the boom.

"Some of the steps that have been taken have been to suspend drivers licenses to seize passports to use garnishment processes to go after people's wages. There have been other collection letters using avenues available through banks," he said.

MacLauchlan said the province is also looking at what it can do to collect support payments from parents who live in other provinces.

"We have acted on and our team is acting on roughly 500 files," he said.

The Justice Department will respond to the other child support concerns raised by the auditor general by the end of next week.

Those included a lack of written rules for staff to follow when collecting outstanding child support, and a lack of documentation on how enforcement cases are being handled.

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