The Ford government announced Monday it won\u2019t increase the funding envelope for the Ontario Autism Program, and won\u2019t have a long-awaited replacement program until fall.<\/p>\n
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\u201cFamilies and children were devastated by Doug Ford\u2019s callous cuts to the Ontario Autism Program,\u201d said the NDP critic for Children and Youth, Monique Taylor. \u201cOver a year later, they\u2019re still waiting, while their children have week after week of critical developmental potential stolen away from them. Now, they\u2019re waiting at least until the fall \u2014 and who knows if they\u2019ll get the support they need, then.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Minister Todd Smith said Monday the funding envelope will remain at $600 million \u2013 the same funding ceiling Minister Lisa MacLeod set.\u00a0 In April, MacLeod said \u201cWe\u2019ve heard from parents and we want to take the time to listen very carefully to their best advice on a needs-based system,\u201d but, four months later, families are still waiting with no changes to the amount of care and support children can access.<\/p>\n
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\u201cDoug Ford and almost every PC MPP spent months defending their cuts to the autism program, lying about the wait lists, and attacking those who didn\u2019t agree with them. Their tone has changed a little, but can families trust them this time?\u201d Taylor asked.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAndrea Horwath and the NDP are going to keep fighting for a needs-based and evidence-backed program that doesn\u2019t cut children off based on their age or arbitrary budget caps. Parents don\u2019t give up on their kids \u2014 neither should we.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Ford government announced Monday it won\u2019t increase the funding envelope for the Ontario Autism Program, and won\u2019t have a long-awaited replacement program until fall. \u201cFamilies and children were …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[473],"class_list":["post-23073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-provincial","tag-autism"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 14:10:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23074,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23073\/revisions\/23074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}