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Andrew Kavchak
ParticipantHi Folks,
And the latest developments in Ontario’s “Autism Gate” situation is that the Provincial Minister responsible for the autism treatment program (note: not the Minister of Health but the Minister of Social Services) has been “assigned a police detail”.
And in a “look South of the border for how to do it better” moment, the Huff Post is carrying an article of interest….but who with any power and influence in a Canadian government will read it?
ParticipantHi Folks,
Well, here’s the next installment in Ontario’s ongoing “Autism Gate” scandal. There was a demonstration in front of the provincial legislature and yesterday the media reported that the Minister responsible for the autism programs in the province was going to avoid the protest because of threats to her security. Well, today the media is reporting that the police have made an arrest.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/lisa-macleod-threats-charges-1.5047729
ParticipantHi Folks,
Well, the latest installment of “Autism Gate” in Ontario is being delivered. As the provincial government plans to dramatically reduce the funding that each child currently receiving treatment will get (pursuant to this newly-announced formula that will distribute the current budget among all kids with autism currently being served and on the waiting list), the school board administrators are realizing that there will likely be a tsunami of kids with autism who will be flooding public schools and need extensive “supports” (forget ongoing one-on-one therapy treatment). So now the school boards and principals are starting to wake up and communicate their concerns to the government (and the media is picking up on it). Up until now the autism treatment program has been the monopoly of the Ministry of Social Services. It is certainly high time that the Ministries of Health and Education got involved!
This morning I heard on the local CBC radio news that the Ottawa school boards apparently had a meeting last night and the administrators put “autism policy changes” on the meeting agenda. Apparently they made a big decision. They designated someone who will draft a letter to send to the Government indicating that they would like the program changes to be delayed (currently scheduled for April 1) and they would like to meet with the Minister of Social Services to discuss this. The news report suggested that some local parents are happy about this decision that was made last night.
Public school parents fear schools won't be ready for children with autism
Of course, the school boards in Ontario are facing some anticipated funding cuts, which will likely only compound the challenge of providing kids with autism with the help they need.
Ottawa's largest school board braces for possible provincial funding cuts
On a separate note, I saw something rather interesting on Mike Lake’s Twitter account. He broadcast someone else’s message (a “retweet”) and then added his own comments, which are somewhat revealing.
The “retweeted” message from someone else was as follows:<b></b>
“NEW: Finance Minister @Bill_Morneau in @janephilpott resigning: “Jane Philpott is a close personal friend of Jody Wilson-Raybould. She took a
decision, I respect her decision. She was a good colleague, and she’ll take the decision that makes the most sense to her.” #cdnpoli”And Mike Lake added his own message (March 4):ed Laura Stone
“This is so condescending. In 2017, as we pushed for a Canadian Autism Partnership, I felt like then Health Minister @JanePhilpott listened w/ respect &, I believe, eventually understood. @Bill_Morneau showed no such respect & ultimately blocked it, for purely political reasons.”
This is a very interesting statement. During the debates over his pet project to create a new bureaucracy to engage in “issue identification”, etc. I don’t recall him saying anything particularly good or nice about the Liberals and subsequently criticized the Liberals for not supporting his initiative. After the vote which resulted in his motion being defeated, he pointed out that the Liberal MPs who attended the autism awareness rallies voted against the motion (surprise!). I certainly don’t recall him saying anything positive about any Liberal Cabinet Minister including Jane Philpott who was the Minister of Health at the time.
Well, now that Jane Philpott has resigned from Cabinet and publicly expressed her lack of confidence in Trudeau, suddenly Mike Lake publicly states that she listened with respect and understood. Really? She’s a doctor so I suspect that she understood autism well before Mike Lake said anything to her, but the fact of the matter is that whether she understood the needs of the autism community or not, she did NOTHING. Ironically, here we have a situation where one federal politician portrays himself as understanding something, and suggests that another one who has more health-related education than he likely ever will have, “eventually” understood. And he suggests that Morneau is the “condescending” one”?! Good grief!. What do they both have in common? On the autism file, as far as I can tell, they both accomplished…nothing.
But that’s not the end of it. Lake then criticizes Morneau for not approving his new bureaucracy proposal and concludes that it was “for purely political reasons”! This would be funny if the hypocrisy was not so blatant. Can it be reasonably suggested that what Mike Lake has said and not said, or done and not done, on the autism file, has been for anything other than “purely political reasons”? For one example of Mike Lake’s “purely political reasons” for his having voted against a Bill that would have required the federal Minister of Health to create a National Autism Strategy with his provincial counterparts, see:
http://featbc.org/downloads/FEATBC_release_02_26_07.pdf
ParticipantHi Folks,
Well, here it is… the next installment in Ontario’s “Autism Gate”. So the government announced sweeping changes that are aimed at getting rid of the waiting list. So instead of having only 8,000 kids with autism getting treatment, an additional 23,000 kids will be entitled now to share the resource pot to pay for treatment. How is it then that the media in Ontario is reporting that therapists have been warned to expect lay-offs in the near future?
Given the number of kids with autism and the need for an increasing number of trained and experienced therapists, why would the government adopt a new policy that is now expected to result in therapists losing their jobs? And if that was not enough, how about this story of a parent complaining that the Minister engaged in some deception by twisting the parent’s words…
Parent of child with autism says Lisa MacLeod ‘manipulated her words’
What is one to make of all this? Anyways, stay tuned for the next installment in Ontario’s “Autism Gate”!
ParticipantHi Folks,
Well, among all the political scandal and brouhaha over the SNC-Lavalin-Gate in Ottawa, particularly yesterday with the former AG’s testimony at the Justice Committee, there was one event that involved the mentioning of autism in the House of Commons:
Wed, Feb 27, 2019
“Autism Spectrum Disorder
<b>Mr. Scott Simms (Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, Lib.): </b>
Mr. Speaker, I rise to present this petition on behalf of many Canadians, primarily from Ontario. I would like to initially thank Dee Gordon for her work on this and for bringing it to this House. The petition is calling for a pan-Canadian strategy on autism spectrum disorder, ASD, a pervasive disorder that affects one person in 88 in this country. It is characterized by social and communication challenges and a pattern of repetitive behaviours and interests. ASD is lifelong and certainly is of great importance to many families with young children suffering from ASD.”
Funny thing….it reminds me of how, way back around 2006, I met with Mike Lake after he was first elected as an MP. I similarly gave him several pages of a signed petition calling for federal action on autism and asked him to table it. He refused and gave it back to me. I don’t think I’ve come across any reference in the transcripts of House of Commons proceedings to his tabling a petition calling for a National Autism Strategy. Pity…ParticipantHi Folks,
Well, I did not have to wait until tomorrow for the next installment in Ontario’s “Autism Gate”. This episode is called “A Tale of Two Autism Societies”. Let’s contrast how “Autism Ontario” and “Autism Canada” have reacted to the recent controversial changes announced by the Ontario government to the autism treatment program.
The Ontario government announced their program changes on February 6 and on the same day Autism Ontario issued a news release which is available here:
It is a news release with numerous messages which does not really reflect Autism Ontario’s position with respect to the changes, apart from saying that it will work with families and the government through the challenges. However, there is an interesting paragraph which I reproduce here:
“The efficacy and success of our autism programming must not fall solely on the shoulders of children’s programming. To support people on the spectrum, we need a commitment across all ministries, including adult services, education, health, mental health, post-secondary, and employment sectors. Without this, families will continue to struggle for support and our society will continue to fail Autistic people and their families across their lifespan.”
When you read that, do you get the impression that they think autism is a “health” issue and should be dealt with by the Ministry of Health and Medicare? They make a reference to “all ministries” and a reference to “health” and “mental health”, but they don’t specify that ABA treatment for autism should be available from the Health Ministry under Medicare.
Not surprisingly, the community was somewhat confused by the press release and Autism Ontario felt it necessary to issue another one on February 12 to “address” a number of “misunderstandings or assumptions”. Having to issue a clarification to explain what you just said is often a sign of poor communication, which is often a sign of not really knowing what you want to say or how to say it. The “Statement” of February 12 is available here:
The statement clarifies that Autism Ontario neither proposed nor endorsed the government’s program changes and is “concerned” about its impact on children and families. It almost sounds like a government agency.
In contrast, Autism Canada issued a press release today (Feb 25) which is available here:
https://autismcanada.org/about-us/news-publications/
The title and subtitle are blunt and somewhat refreshing in their brutal honesty:
“Try Again, Minister MacLeod
Ontario Autism Program changes are bad policy and set the stage for crisis”
The press release offers some blunt assessments and has several recommendations, including this one:
“2) Autism should be framed as a health issue. Autism is a complex, neuro-developmental disorder, not a learning disability nor a behavioural problem. The needs of children with autism are also medical, not just ‘social’ or ‘educational.’ Essential health services for those with autism, which includes speech, occupational and psychological therapies, should be treated as a right, not a luxury. Health services for autism should not be conditional and subject to the whims of each new government.”
Wow. Bravo. Can you believe that a Canadian “Autism Society” actually said that? I’m speechless.
ParticipantHi Folks,
Wow…there really seem to be a lot of “…gates” around the political world these days. At the federal level, the national media have been wrapped up in “SNC-Lavalin-gate” for a few weeks now. Similarly in Ontario “Autism-gate” has taken on some new unprecedented proportions.
How many times have you felt, while talking to politicians and bureaucrats, that you were deliberately being misled? How many times did you believe that you were not being told the full story and that your efforts to extract some relevant details were fruitless? Well, the Ottawa Citizen is reporting an interesting development in the ongoing saga of Minister Lisa MacLeod’s handling of the autism file. Keep in mind that she came to one of our rallies over a decade ago when she was in opposition and had over a decade to research and study the autism file. Last summer her Conservative Party won the provincial election and this month she announced changes to the autism treatment program that have been extremely controversial. And just when you thought the media coverage was exhausted and that the story would be taken off the front page, this comes up:
Documents suggest Ontario autism wait list frozen last fall, parents not told
So apparently the newspaper has copies of some internal government documents from last fall suggesting that the waiting list was “frozen” (i.e., no one on the list was called when a spot became available) and staff were instructed to keep this information from parents. Accusations are not being made that a crisis was created (actually I think “exacerbated” is probably the more appropriate description) and there is a renewed call for the minister to be replaced. Some people suggest that there was a “hiding of the truth” and now there is an atmosphere of “mistrust”. Yeah….no kidding. Unfortunately, for many people in the community who have been around the block several times, this all has a sense of “deja vu”. Sometimes you have to admit, investigative journalism is good. I can’t wait for tomorrow’s next installment in “autism-gate”!
ParticipantHi Folks,
Well, something interesting is brewing in Ontario. Two weeks ago the provincial government announced a major change to the autism treatment programs (sharing the current budget of $300 million among the 8,000 current recipients and the 23,000 on the wait list so that everybody gets some funding and the waiting list is gone). However, the announced program changes have largely been criticized by the autism community for providing families with nothing close to what is needed to cover a full scale treatment program. Many in the community have criticized the government’s approach of giving everyone the same amount of financial help (although this is complicated by different formulas for the kids up to age six and over as well as annual maximum amounts and a family income test, etc.) and suggested instead that funding allocation should be based on the child’s needs (some more severe than others, etc.). In the past I noticed that it was hard to mobilize the community and even harder to sustain any coordinated effort at protesting, lobbying and getting media coverage. However, parents across the province have been successful in keeping this issue in the media and it appears that the Minister’s constituency office in Ottawa is now the site for weekly protests every Friday (whether she’s “in” or not).
As a result of all this media coverage, some stories are appearing in the media about ABA which are giving it a profile, and giving the public are getting an education that no “Autism Awareness” campaign ever did before. Finally, I just saw an interesting Global news story comparing autism programs in different provinces across the country.
Ontario’s autism funding overhaul — here’s how it compares to the rest of Canada
I hope all this discussion will generate some serious debate among politicians and bureaucrats about what is needed and what can be done. Clearly, there is a problem and it won’t just go away by itself.
However, among all the letters-to-the-editor in support of the autism community (most from the autism community), there are also appearing some messages from people saying “enough already”. On one radio talk show this week I heard one high profile guest simply say that getting rid of the waiting list is a worthwhile objective and there’s no more money and it’s just too bad for the autism community. Another letter-to-the-editor in the Ottawa Citizen today bluntly stated in a rather nasty tone that the autism community should indicate where should the current healthcare budget expenditures be cut to pay for the increased resources that are asked for. The letter writer suggested that if the community wants the government to raise taxes, they can “forget it”. Well, the letter-writer (a woman whom I met years ago when working in the bowels of the federal bureaucracy) missed the point about the community asking for a funding formula relating more to kids needs rather than across the board same financial handouts, but of course she also did not take into consideration that the Auditor General reports are full of stories of gross wasting of taxpayers money. In Ontario there was a billion dollars or something like that recently spent as “penalties” for cancelling some utility contracts. Why are taxpayers paying penalties? Are we not penalized enough by the taxes in the first place? At the federal level, the Phoenix pay system fiasco has been apparently another billion dollar flushed down the toilet. So the money is there. We just need better managers who take care to minimize the risk of outrageous waste.
ParticipantHi Folks,
I just tried to post a story, but I don’t think it was successfully uploaded, so here it is again (sorry if there turns out to be a duplicate).
The situation in Ontario looks like a lot of “deja vu” to those who have been in the trenches for a while. There was an election, lots of promises, a new government, a review of the program, an announcement, no new money, twinking around the edge, and presto….new program which a lot of parents are upset about. The media coverage about the community’s feedback is mostly negative. There may of course be many families who are happy with the changes that were announced, but they don’t seem to be reflected in the media stories.
This is one of the reason why many parents have called on the feds to demonstrate some leadership, call the provinces to a meeting, and negotiate a funding formula and national standards as part of a “National Autism Strategy”. So far, no one in power refers to such a term. Here are two contrasting views.
First, on Senator Munson’s website there is a very nice video of numerous supportive Senators calling for a National Autism Strategy. Check it out at:
http://senatormunson.ca/en/by-the-senator/autism-awareness-day-at-the-senate/
In contrast, check out the transcript of a recent interview with Mike Lake at:
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/why-canadian-mp-mike-lake-is-advocating-for-autism/
Note the part where he is asked what people can do to help those with disabilities. Instead of responding with a discussion about what governments can and should do, and what individuals (including politicians like him) could lobby for in terms of public policy, he seems to completely remove the feds from the picture (see the quote below). In other words, don’t lobby him because you are “wasting your energy”. Do I understand and interpret that correctly?
“Going off of that, what can we as global citizens do to improve the lives of people who are differently abled?
ML: Educate yourself first. I think that is really important because too often people want to debate before they have the full information and information is critical to help form credibility. Then identify the proper targets for your message. I’ve found in Canada, much like in the United States, with multiple levels of government, a lot of energy can be wasted lobbying the wrong level of government for something. So make sure you’re talking to the right people.”
ParticipantHi Folks,
Well, the Ontario government’s announcement of changes to the autism program in the province has generated a lot of media stories. Many of the stories, including the media video of a demonstration in front of the Minister’s constituency office here in Ottawa (which included a soundbite of her shedding tears after a meeting in her office with some parents while still sticking to her announced plan), involve parents expression their frustration with the proposed plan of spreading the current resource pie among current recipients (8,000) and all those on the waiting list (23,000), so as to reduce the amount that each family can expect as assistance to pay for treatment. In some cases, the drop is significant. Of course, there may be some parents on the waiting list who are very happy to finally access something (better than nothing), but don’t contribute to the media stories which would reflect a positive spin on the government’s plan. So media stories may not be all that reflective of the public opinion across the community. However, it can be said that there are many members of the community in Ontario who are upset.
To many of us who have been in the trenches for a while, this all has a sense of “deja vu”. Election, lots of promises, new government, review of programs, o new resources, announcement, some twinking around the edges, back to square one, etc. To many of us who have grown frustrated with the provinces doing an overall unsatisfactory job of handling the autism file (the wait list in Ottawa for the placement of an adult with autism into a group home is ten years – it is hard to call that “satisfactory”), one solution is to call for some leadership from the federal government’s Minister of Health to call a meeting of provincial Ministers and negotiate a funding formula and national standards for access to treatment, etc. This approach is hardly new and has been done in numerous fields (the current government’s “National Housing Strategy” may be considered an example of the feds getting directly involved in a huge national problem). Yet, for some reason, the lobbying for the past 15 years or so for a “National Autism Strategy” has largely been ignored at the federal level. On this point, I would like to share two things with you in case you have not seen them.
First, Senator Munson’s website has a very interesting video on one page about the need for a “National Autism Strategy” which includes soundbites with a number of Senators who are clearly supportive of the idea. Check it out at:
http://senatormunson.ca/en/by-the-senator/autism-awareness-day-at-the-senate/
Second, Mike Lake recently gave an interview about autism with a “Global Citizen” organization. The transcript of the interview is short and available here:
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/why-canadian-mp-mike-lake-is-advocating-for-autism/
Note the part towards the end where the interviewer asks Lake about what we can do to help improve the lives of those who have disabilities. His response seems to brush the federal government totally out of the picture.
“Educate yourself first. I think that is really important because too often people want to debate before they have the full information and information is critical to help form credibility. Then identify the proper targets for your message. I’ve found in Canada, much like in the United States, with multiple levels of government, a lot of energy can be wasted lobbying the wrong level of government for something. So make sure you’re talking to the right people.”
Do I understand this response correctly? It seems to me that instead of talking about what governments can do and what public policy initiatives people (including politicians like him) should lobby for, his response is that people should stop wasting their energy lobbying the federal government for a “National Autism Strategy”. I guess that means that he is not the right person to talk to about this. Strangely, I agree, but obviously for different reasons.
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