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Excerpt from Hansard - December 5, 2007

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Excerpt from hansard

Official Record of the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Ontario Legislature

Andrea Horwath, MPP for Hamilton Centre and Children and Youth Services Critic for Ontario’s NDP, asked the following question in Question Period in the Ontario Legislature on December 5, 2007:

AUTISM TREATMENT

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is for the Minister of Children and Youth Services. On Monday, the minister claimed tremendous progress on the issue of autism. I just want to ask the minister if she really thinks it’s tremendous progress to keep 1,000 children with autism on an ever-growing list for treatment when, four years ago, your Premier promised that they were going to take care of this?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Thank you for the question. I appreciate the opportunity to again talk about some of the progress we have made for kids with autism since we were elected in 2003. While there is still much to do, we acknowledge that we have made tremendous progress.

Let me just talk about a few of the things. We have removed the age six cut-off that the Tory government imposed, we have tripled funding for services with autism, and we have almost tripled the number of children receiving IBI therapy. In fact, since this Legislature last met, we have expanded IBI even further, to 210 more children. We’ve announced a new respite program to give more than 3,000 families—the parents—a break from the difficult challenges of having a child with autism, and more than 800 kids with autism have gone to summer camp thanks to a new program we have supported.

Ms. Andrea Horwath: I think the minister knows very well that it was not an initiative of the government but a force of the courts that created the movement on this particular file, and that is absolutely shameful. The minister knows very well that families continue to mortgage their homes to try to get services. Families continue to go into great debt to try to get services for their children. So the bottom line is, if it wasn’t for the action of the courts, this government would have done nothing. When is this government going to actually deliver on funding to clear the waiting list for those children and the families that need autism services in the province of Ontario?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: You might want to check your facts on that court decision.

I can tell you that while you have been playing politics with this issue and these families, we have been getting down to work. But we’re not done. We are expanding capacity in this system, and you know it. For example, our new college program to train autism therapists has already graduated 200 new therapists, with 300 more to be enrolled next year. We’ve added three new colleges that are instructing in IBI therapy, autism therapy, including St. Clair in Windsor, Fanshawe College in London and Lambton College in Sarnia, bringing the total to 12 sites delivering this program. Our next step will be delivering IBI services in schools so that children can get the services in their own schools.