Ford must implement needs-based autism strategy immediately: NDP
QUEEN’S PARK — NDP Children and Youth Services critic Monique Taylor made the following statement, responding to Wednesday’s report from the province’s autism panel calling for a needs-based funding approach to autism services:
“For a year, parents and families of children with autism have been dragged through hell. They’ve been subjected to the Ford government axing needs-based funding for their kids’ treatment, then spreading misinformation about service wait lists to justify their cruel cuts.
The Ford government’s attacks on children with autism have left children to backslide on progress. For many families, the consequences of Ford’s cuts have been devastating, with the potential to impact them for years.
For a year, parents, families, experts and the NDP have said it is crucial that the Ford government create a needs-based approach for funding autism services. Now, the government’s own panel is calling for the same thing.
While Doug Ford sat on his hands waiting for a report to confirm what we all already knew, children’s lives have been seriously impacted.
Families whose lives have been ripped apart by Ford’s callous cuts deserve the needs-based system they have been waiting for — and they need it immediately, not in April 2020.”