Alberta’s Bill 5 amends the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped Act and its general regulation to exclude more assets from the financial eligibility calculation for AISH applicants and clients. It protects assets held in a trust where the person or their cohabiting partner has a beneficial interest, and allows certain non-income payments to be protected if invested within 365 days in a designated asset.
The changes address a basic eligibility problem: receiving or retaining money can otherwise jeopardize access to disability income support. The bill also replaces several narrower regulatory rules, including a provision that allowed a director to deem a beneficiary’s trust an asset and a 90-day reinvestment deadline for certain proceeds.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill adds a statutory asset exclusion for qualifying trusts and for non-income money invested within 365 days in assets designated by regulation. It also names trusts and existing exempt asset categories as designated assets under the AISH regulation and removes conflicting older provisions.
Who It Affects
The changes directly affect AISH applicants and clients, their cohabiting partners, trustees, families, and representatives managing settlements or other payments. They also affect Alberta officials who determine financial eligibility and administer the program’s asset rules.
Why It Matters
The bill reduces the risk that a trust or qualifying payment will disqualify a person with a severe disability from income support. It shifts important protection from discretionary administration toward clearer statutory and regulatory exemptions, while leaving the definition of qualifying non-income money to regulation.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
Bill 5 changes the asset test used under Alberta’s Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped program. When officials determine whether an applicant or client meets the program’s financial requirements, they must exclude the value of assets held in a trust in which the person or the person’s cohabiting partner has a beneficial interest.
This replaces the prior regulatory approach under which a director could deem a beneficiary’s trust to be the person’s asset.
The bill also creates a pathway for protecting money received by the person or their cohabiting partner. The money must not count as income under the regulations, and it must be invested within 365 days of receipt in an asset that the regulations designate for this purpose.
The statute therefore creates the protection, while the regulatory framework determines both which payments qualify and which investment vehicles can preserve the exemption.The implementing regulation designates a trust of which a person is a beneficiary and the asset categories already listed in Schedule 2, including a principal residence, specified vehicles, locked-in retirement accounts, registered disability savings plans, clothing and reasonable household items, and prepaid funerals. The regulation also removes an older trust-deeming rule and deletes the previous provision dealing specifically with reinvested sale proceeds or insurance settlements.The bill applies on and after April 1, 2018.
It does not create a new benefit amount or change the basic income test; its principal effect is to change which assets administrators must leave out when applying the existing eligibility rules.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The statutory asset test must exclude assets held in a trust where the person or the person’s cohabiting partner has a beneficial interest.
A qualifying payment can remain outside the asset calculation only if it is not income under the regulations and is invested within 365 days in a designated asset.
The regulation designates beneficiary trusts and the existing Schedule 2 asset categories as eligible destinations for protected funds.
The bill repeals the rule allowing a director to deem a trust of which a person is a beneficiary to be that person’s asset.
The bill removes the former 90-day reinvestment rule, including its conditional extension to 180 days, for proceeds from specified sales or insurance settlements.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Adds a statutory trust and payment exemption
This provision adds section 3.1 to the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped Act. It requires the asset calculation to leave out qualifying trust assets and qualifying non-income money invested within 365 days in a prescribed asset.
The provision matters because it establishes the core protection in the Act itself rather than relying only on administrative treatment. It also covers the assets of the person’s cohabiting partner, so the household’s financial position remains relevant but certain protected assets cannot be counted.
Authorizes designated assets by regulation
The amendment adds authority for regulations to designate assets for the new 365-day investment rule. This gives the executive branch flexibility to specify eligible investment forms without returning to the Legislature for each technical change.
That flexibility also makes the scope of the exemption dependent on the regulatory list. Trustees, advisors, and program administrators must therefore read the Act together with the applicable regulation rather than treating every investment as protected.
Updates the AISH General Regulation
The regulation amendment repeals the provision allowing a director to deem a beneficiary’s trust to be an asset and removes the former rule concerning certain reinvested sale proceeds and insurance settlements. It then designates beneficiary trusts and the existing Schedule 2 categories as eligible assets for the statutory exemption.
The practical result is a more direct relationship between the Act’s protection and the regulation’s list of designated assets. The changes also eliminate older rules that could otherwise conflict with the new trust treatment or impose different reinvestment conditions.
Preserves amendment authority for the designated-asset rule
This section provides that the new designated-assets provision in Schedule 2 can be amended or repealed through the same process used for regulations made under section 12 of the Act. It confirms that the list remains a regulatory instrument rather than a permanently fixed statutory schedule.
For affected households and advisers, that means the availability of particular protected investment vehicles can change through later regulatory action. The statutory exemption remains, but its operational details are not frozen indefinitely.
Sets the application date
The bill applies on and after April 1, 2018. This establishes when the revised asset rules govern eligibility and administration, without creating a separate transition scheme or setting out a special process for earlier determinations.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on this topic across all five countries.
Explore this topic in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- AISH applicants with beneficiary interests in trusts benefit because the trust’s value cannot be included in the asset calculation merely because they have that beneficial interest.
- Existing AISH clients who receive qualifying non-income payments gain additional time to invest those funds: the bill uses a 365-day period rather than the former 90-day framework for the specified reinvestment rule.
- People with disabilities and their cohabiting partners who use registered disability savings plans, locked-in retirement accounts, homes, qualifying vehicles, or other listed assets receive clearer protection from asset-counting rules.
- Families, trustees, and financial advisers gain a more predictable framework for preserving disability-related funds without automatically putting AISH eligibility at risk.
Who Bears the Cost
- AISH administrators must revise eligibility assessments, guidance, forms, and case-review practices to apply the new statutory and regulatory exclusions.
- The Alberta government bears ongoing administrative costs associated with interpreting the new rules and maintaining the list of designated assets.
- Applicants and clients remain responsible for demonstrating that money was not income under the regulations, was invested within the 365-day period, and was placed in a designated asset.
- Trustees and advisers face continuing compliance work because the exemption depends on the person’s beneficial interest, the nature of the payment, and the regulatory designation of the asset.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill tries to protect disability-related financial security without removing the asset test altogether. That requires a line between funds that should support a person without affecting AISH eligibility and assets that indicate available financial resources; clearer exemptions reduce arbitrary outcomes, but a broader and changeable exemption framework can make administration and long-term financial planning more complex.
The bill provides a broad headline protection for trusts, but the legal result still depends on the structure of the trust and the person’s actual beneficial interest. It does not explain how administrators should treat different trust terms, distributions, control rights, or mixed funds.
Those questions remain important for trustees and representatives who need to preserve eligibility while meeting the person’s spending needs.
The 365-day rule is more flexible than the repealed reinvestment framework, but it is not an unrestricted safe harbour. The payment must first qualify as non-income under the regulations, and the destination asset must appear on the designated list.
A person who misses the deadline or chooses an unlisted investment may still face asset-counting consequences. The bill also leaves the list amendable by regulation, which allows useful flexibility but makes long-term planning dependent on future regulatory choices.
There's more to this law than the bill.
Codify Laws traces every connection across the legislative lifecycle.