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Mary Vallis, with files from Andrew Thomson and Craig Pearson, CanWest News
Service; with files from Ottawa Citizen and Windsor
StarPublished: Wednesday, September 26, 2007
LONDON - Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory on Tuesday pledged to
eliminate Ontario’s waiting list for children’s autism treatment, but Premier
Dalton McGuinty urged voters to be wary of the Tories’ spending plans.
The NDP, meanwhile, said it would reinsure physiotherapy, chiropractic care,
and eye exams under OHIP, the province’s health plan.
The Conservative leader is promising to spend an additional $75 million
annually on autism, provide in-school treatments and spend $5 million of that
money on respite programs to provide relief for families.
"Days before the 2003 provincial election, Mr.
McGuinty wrote to the parent of a child with autism and promised help," Tory
said after meeting with parents of autistic children.
"But Mr. McGuinty has not delivered, and those families are still
waiting."
Tory said that when McGuinty became premier, 89 children in Ontario were
waiting for autism treatment, but as of last month, the wait list had grown to
more than 1,000.
Experts have told him it will take a minimum of two years to clear the wait
list, he said.
McGuinty has been widely criticized for promising in a letter to a motion for
a child with autism to extend expensive therapy to children over the age of six,
ending the previous Conservative government’s "unfair and discriminatory"
practice of not granting the treatment to older children. Although McGuinty
penned the letter before the last provincial election, he did not meet that
commitment until 2005.
At a campaign stop in Mississauga, the premier pointed out the Liberals
boosted funding for autistic children from what the previous Conservative
government provided. The party spends $140 million a year on autism, which is
says is triple the amount spent by the previous Tory government.
McGuinty urged Ontarians to be "very careful" when considering Tory’s
commitments when there is a cost involved.
"Now he’s telling us that he can cut our taxes, he can deliver more services,
and he can balance a budget," McGuinty said.
"That’s what the last guy (Premier Mike Harris) said and then he closed our
hospitals, fired our nurses, fired our water inspectors, underfunded our
schools, and stuck all of us with a $5.6-billion deficit."
Also on Tuesday in Elliot Lake, the New Democrats also zeroed in on health
with leader Howard Hampton promising to re-list a number of medical services
under the province’s health-care plan and offer relief from the McGuinty
government’s health tax.
An NDP government would invest $100 million in physiotherapy, chiropractic
care, and eye exams to reverse what Hampton deemed a Liberal "flirtation with
privatization."
Uproar ensued in March 2005 when the Ontario government removed the
procedures from coverage for most patients between 20 and 64 years old.
In other developments Tuesday, McGuinty said that if elected, Ontario will
spend $100 million on trains, buses and track in and around Toronto.
MoveOntario 2020 will deliver 52 rapid transit projects, covering 902
kilometres, at a cost of $17.5 billion.
Construction begins next year, though the project will take till 2020 to be
95 per cent complete.
The first $100 million announced will pay for 20 new GO trains, 10 new
double-decker GO buses, expanded GO track, a new transit terminal in Markham,
and six new hybrid buses for Hamilton.
The Conservatives dismissed the announcement as recycled news, as did the
NDP.
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Awareness 
