Northern Ontario parents of children with autism are holding a news conference at Queen's Park in Toronto today about the impact Ontario government policies are having on autism services here in the north.
Despite having received the autism advisory panel recommendations report 40 days ago, Children, Community and Social Services Minister Todd Smith still has not announced any details about a needs-based autism program for Ontario.
Sudbury MPP Jamie West and Thunder Bay—Atikokan MPP Judith Monteith-Farrell were also expected to question Premier Doug Ford in question period this morning about the loss of autism services in the North.
As children and their families continue to wait for needs-based services, the Ford government said they won’t do anything to help until next April, according to a press release from the parents.
The Ontario government announced in July that they will be expanding the scope of the autism expert panel to provide advice on what a new needs-based and sustainable autism program would look like.
While the new plan is being worked out, those receiving therapy under the old system received a six-month extension on funding, families promised money will receive it and more children will come off the wait list.
Smith visited Sudbury in August and fielded questions and concerns from autism parents who were still unsure about how the proposed system would look or when it would be implemented.
A new program is slated to be introduced by April 2020, and it is not yet clear what that program will look like, but it has already undergone a number of changes since the Ford government first introduced their version of the plan that was met with significant backlash.
Even with plans to introduce a new program, the Ontario government continues to implement the inadequate one-size-fits-all Doug Ford/Lisa MacLeod (former minister of Children, Community and Social Services) childhood budgets which do not allow for the much higher expenses for autism therapy in the north, said the press release from the autism parents.
Although the last minister promised to increase funding for diagnosis, wait times in Thunder Bay have doubled, with no improvement in sight, the press release said.
"Our five-year-old, Fiona, was diagnosed at around two years of age as severely autistic,” said Alina Cameron of Slate River, near Thunder Bay.
“Now, five years later, we’re still fighting for any scrap of help that we can find, but my hope is dimming. I know service capacity takes years to build, and because of Doug Ford’s inaction our region's autism service capacity as been decimated.”
Parents of children with autism in Sudbury took another hit in September, when one of the city's main providers of therapeutic services, Child and Community Resources, announced that they could no longer offer services to new families as a result of a loss of funding.
Thus far, no action has been taken by the ministry, and parents are demanding a solution with a firm timeline for implementation, said the press release.
