7 thoughts on Minister Smith’s July 29 Ontario Autism Program announcement

MCCSS Minister Smith’s July 29 2019 autism program annoucement at Surrey Place

Finally there was an official communication made on where the Ontario Autism Program is heading under the direction of Minister Todd Smith. There was an official news release that can be read here, as well as an announcement and press question and answer made at Surrey Place, you can watch that here.

Here’s my 7 thoughts on the announcement:

1. April 2020 is needs based for the politicians, not the children. This got passed over during the announcement, however in the official Ministry press release they’ve stated “Minister Smith announced steps Ontario is taking to provide continuity of service while providing the necessary time to design a new needs-based autism program by April 2020.” Granted, it takes time to design and implement a program, however the April 2020 date is once again merely fitting the budgeting needs of the politicians as it represents the beginning of a new fiscal year. I’m having a hard time believing anything else, as there’s no way the government could know the timeline to put a new system in place without first knowing what the scope and corresponding operational governance of this program will be. Bottomline, the interim solution needs to be better if the new program won’t be ready until April 2020.
2. Education and Health were ignored. Why were Minister’s Lecce (Education) and Elliott (Health) there and yet provided no details what their involvement was? This was disappointing. Education, and the terrible state of autism supports in our schools, is the elephant in the room, and there stood Stephen Lecce without uttering a single word. Christine Elliott could have said a few words as well. What’s going on with the ABA regulation efforts? Anything? Nada? Again, not a word from the Health minister.
3. Autism therapy provider layoffs not addressed. Did somebody forget that making the announcement at Surrey Place is rather symbolic? Yet, not a word on preventing more frontline autism therapist layoffs. Surrey Place is symbolic in that it is one of the regional providers of autism therapy that is under threat due to the abrupt cutover to a fully direct funding model program, coupled with the financial inadequacy of the childhood budgets for evidence based ABA therapy. In the interim, more needs to be done to prevent Ontario losing autism therapy capacity.
4. The abysmal uptake of childhood budgets raises serious concerns about this interim plan. The government is saying that in the interim, those in service are extended another 6 months, while some on the waitlist will receive childhood budgets. Obviously for those in service, this is the right move which guarantees there will be no service gap leading up to April 2020. But for those on the waitlist the interim solution is childhood budgets? The first attempt at this was a bust! During his listening tour stops, Smith had expressed how perplexing the low uptake of childhood budgets was. After receiving a Childhood Budget application letter, the percentage of people who actually applied is somewhere in the 20–25% range. That’s terrible! Something is seriously amiss with the application process to have that poor of an uptake. Regardless of the fact that childhood budgets are not needs-based, the low uptake is deeply concerning to me that many on the wait list will not get that money. It also is a sign that the government may not spend anything close to the “doubling of the budget” they speak about.
5. The $620 million autism budget is now $600 million. I’m not at all surprised to hear conflicting autism program budget numbers coming from the MCCSS, but Smith has just saved himself $20 million in 2 weeks! In this July 15 Intelligencer article, Smith said there’s “a ton of money in this program. The previous Liberal government funded autism to the tune of $320 million. There is now $620 million in there.” When watching the announcement I first thought he was rounding down $620M to $600M, but no, it’s now $600 million. In the actual press release they said this: “As previously announced, Ontario is investing an additional $278 million in the province’s autism program, bringing the total amount of funding to $600 million annually.” Look it, more money in the program is a good thing, I just don’t understand why the autism budget is a different number based upon which way the wind blows. Not to be a stickler, but $600M minus $278M means the previous budget was $322M, however the number which was widely accepted was $321M. They just short changed their investment by a million dollars. But hey, who is counting anyways?
6. In the interim, why not bring wait list kids into the legacy program? First come, first serve is how it worked. I don’t know what the uptake numbers were when you got called into the existing OAP, but I’ll bet the house it’s a hell of a lot better than the 20% range we’re seeing with the childhood budgets. The administrative capacity is there to process 6 month budget submissions, so why not go that route instead of pushing out childhood budgets? Just don’t call it the Liberal plan, and you’re golden!
7. Bridging the gap to adulthood continues to be ignored. I didn’t expect anything on this during the announcement, and sure enough there was no mention of the gaps between the OAP, Child Disability Benefits, and the support gaps when turning 18 due to ODSP. Hopefully the panel will make recommendations to move the OAP from a childhood only based program, to address autism over the lifespan. And don’t forget to think about proper job seeking and employee/employer support programs. With the right level of support, the employment rate of adults with autism can improve dramatically. A win-win!