Learn from this disaster
On Monday, almost six months after scrapping the previous Liberal government’s needs-based Ontario autism program for a misguided one-size-fits-all approach that threw thousands of families into crisis, the Ford government officially reversed course.
Some may say the move is aimed at propping up Doug Ford’s political cousins in Ottawa in the lead-up to a federal election. Ford’s tanking popularity is tainting Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives in Ontario.
But it also shows the perils of Ford’s scorched-earth policy when it comes to the previous provincial government’s initiatives.
It turns out Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals got it right in 2017 when they ended arbitrary funding caps and age cut-offs for treatment of autism, and moved to a system that relied on trained behavioural therapists to recommend treatment based on need.
The problem then, as now, was the funding. At just over $300 million a year, wait-lists grew, forcing many parents to wipe out savings and remortgage their homes so their children could receive treatment during critical developmental windows.
Unfortunately, in their zeal to clear the wait-lists and put their own stamp on the program, the Ford government ignored advice from parents and experts and introduced a complete overhaul of the program, along with fixed annual amounts based on age for parents to spend on various kinds of therapy.
By acknowledging the folly of these “childhood budgets” and vowing to return to funding based on need, Todd Smith, Ontario’s new minister for children and youth, is hoping to end the near-constant criticism the government has endured on this file.
Indeed, an annual funding jump to $600 million — announced earlier this year and confirmed by Smith on Monday — should be cause for celebration.
But it won’tprobably quell the frustration that families have with the uncertainty and footdragging they have endured from this government. Indeed, the government now says its new program won’t be ready until April.
That’s nearly two years after the Progressive Conservatives were elected and nearly two years after they hurled this file into chaos by refusing to listen to parents, experts and even their own political staff, one of whom quit over the debacle.
Smith assured parents that those on wait lists, or whose children have been newly diagnosed with autism, will be offered services based on the current discredited system while the government scrambles to retool. But parents are tired of waiting for the government to get it right.
In March, after weeks of noisy protests at Queen’s Park, former minister Lisa MacLeod announced belated public consultations and named a panel of experts to “tweak” the autism program to better meet the needs of kids with severe challenges.
On Monday, Smith said he has ordered the panel to forget childhood budgets and make recommendations on how the program can be retooled to ensure the entire $600-million budget funds treatment based on need. And he apologized to families for the trauma they have endured.
While this may have been the Ford government’s first significant policy reversal, subsequent backtracking on the sex-ed curriculum and massive cuts to municipalities shows its strategy of acting first and consulting later is wearing thin.
As the new minister of children, community and social services, Smith will be overseeing significant changes in other sensitive programs involving Ontario’s most vulnerable people, including social assistance and children’s aid.
Smith would be wise to consider important work already underway in those areas before the PCs came to power before axing everything and starting over. He should learn, in other words, from the government’s bungling on autism.
Parents are tired of waiting for the Ontario government to get autism funding right