Families deserve immediate access to autism services, not more broken promises: NDP

HAMILTON – Monique Taylor, NDP Children and Youth Services critic, issued the following statement about Doug Ford’s latest broken promise to families of children with autism.

“Once again Doug Ford has hurt kids with autism. He’s already put families through hell over the last year by denying access to the services their children need. Because of his cuts, autism workers have been fired and services are almost impossible to access for so many families – especially those in northern and rural communities. Now Ford is breaking yet another promise and dashing hopes by delaying the start of the new Ontario Autism Program by yet another full year. Interim funding that’s not needs based and falls well short of what’s needed just doesn’t cut it, especially when it’s harder than ever to find services. Any further delay in implementing needs-based autism programming is completely unacceptable and could irreparable damage so many children’s developmental potential. We need to start rebuilding capacity immediately. Children need access to services now, not at some unspecified date in the future.”