A little over three-and-a-half years ago, the Ford government dismantled the Ontario Autism Program (OAP) with no solid plan to replace it. They defunded treatment centres and, it was later discovered, had secretly frozen the wait list (Sept. 2018) so no new clients could access therapy. Eventually, those treatment centres were forced to close branches and lay off hundreds of therapists.
Since that time, the PCs have missed every deadline that they have set for themselves for the launch of the new OAP. They have had false starts and provided Band-aid solutions for families of autistic children, but have yet to provide the "needs-based" program that they promised in 2018.
In 2019, after the initial announcement about the changes to the OAP, families of autistic children began to protest. The new Ontario Autism Program would have families get a cash payout based on age and income to cover the expenses of therapy.
The problem was that because the funding allotment was not based on needs, many children would get way too much funding, and many more would get far too little. It also didn't take into consideration location or family dynamics.
In response to parents protesting, Doug Ford and his minister asked a panel made up of experts, autistic adults, and parents to make recommendations on how to better the OAP. The group spent 5 long months working on creating a comprehensive report for the ministry. Parents had high hopes that the government would take the advice from those who knew best and create a truly needs-based program.
They did not.
Despite their public claims that it is a "World Class Program" there are so many faults in it, that it barely resembles the recommendations. The most obvious is that the new OAP still has a solid foundation based on age. There is also no plan to rebuild capacity, especially in northern communities where accessing therapy was near impossible to begin with.
Now here we are, four years later and three ministers in.
The waitlist for therapy was 23,000 in February of 2019. Today there are approximately 55,000 waiting to access the new program and only 1.59 per cent accessing the new OAP therapy programming. You used to wait two years for treatment, which was bad enough when early intervention is key to a successful future. Now many children have been waiting more than six years for help and have no idea when they will have access to the program.
Newly diagnosed children will likely wait six-plus years as well ensuring that they age out of most of the funding.
At this time, there are approximately 888 children enrolled in Core Services, which is the branch of the new program that provides the therapies that are most beneficial to children with autism. They have added only 30 children to the program since April when they had promised to enrol 8,000 more by the fall, but with so many missed deadlines over the past four years, parents aren't convinced.
Cassie Rogerson,
Callander
