Apr. 2 — An Ontario Autism Program to meet the needs of accountants.

The Ontario government made an announcement today on the OAP. I recommend reading the Press Release: Province Consulting with Parents on Enhancements to the Ontario Autism Program. Not much new here — the government is going to do an online survey, some telephone townhalls and some MPP townhalls (which won’t be limited to MPPs on the government side of the house), to get feedback on how to design the new OAP (which, as I like to remind everyone, went live yesterday).

There was also a press conference, where three Ministers (Health; Education; Children, Community and Social Services) were there, along with two government MPPs. After the Ministers gave their speeches, the floor was open to Q&A.

Cynthia Mulligan asked the question that every parent is thinking:

Why didn’t you consult with families prior… It seems like you’re taking a massive step backwards and are now starting where you should have started months ago.

In the past I’ve been critical of Lisa MacLeod’s inability to say something new, but her answer contained something I had not heard before:

We had a number of roundtables throughout Ontario. We also know the previous Liberal government had consulted widely, which is what we used a template. We were given a target by the Treasury Board, both financially and a timeline, to create a new program, which is what we did.

Mulligan’s question was 13:45 from the start of the announcement. Here’s video, starting at the 13:45 mark:

Treasury Board is the arm of the Ontario government that “ plan[s] expenditure management”, among other things.

It’s clear as day the OAP changes were not designed to meet the needs of families, but rather to meet the needs of accountants. Parents always suspected that, but today MacLeod confirmed it.