Parents of children with autism in Timmins are demanding action from the Ford government for help NOW.
They’ve enlisted NDP MPP Gilles Bisson to champion their cause not to delay a new funding program by yet another year.
Dawna Chorney has two sons with autism: 11-year-old Quinton and Austin, who’s nine.
It’s almost three years since Quinton has had treatment. His mom says he has regressed and can become violent, breaking things.
“We need help and we need help now,” she says emphatically. “And we were given a date of April 2020 and we trusted our government with that date to come out with the needs-based program, and they have let us down again by delaying us another year.”
Bisson says that since government cuts to autism treatment, there is now only one instructor-therapist in the entire north, down from ten.
So Chorney says the government plan to hand cheques to families to get their own treatment is useless.
“We don’t have anyone to hire to get this help,” she notes. “Whether we get the money or not, it’s not going to help. We want a needs-based program and we want it delivered as it was promised, in April of 2020.”
Chorney says there’s a Queen’s Park rally in February. Premier Ford, she says, promised there’d be no need for yet another rally. She sees that as another broken promise.