Thread by @ottawa_asd_mum

1/ I am the parent of autistic children and I need to stop watching Question Period in the Ontario Legislature.

I need to stop putting myself within earshot of redundant, scripted talking points that may sound good on paper, that may yield an MPP an “attaboy” (or girl) from

2/ someone on the sidelines who doesn’t know any better, that may earn someone political points for “making good” on promises their opponents failed to keep.

But I know better.

I know that best intentions from professionals were put on paper then twisted beyond recognition

3/ by bureaucrats who care nothing about the people they are paid to serve, and everything about the bottom line.

I have 2 school aged autistic children in Ontario. So I tune into Question Period to see if the Opposition delivers on holding government to task. I hope they will

4/ grasp onto the right words to fire across the aisle and truly capture how much trauma the @fordnation has subjected upon families who were already in crisis before the program they depend on was quite literally demolished.

I need to stop listening to Question Period. Because

5/ it hurts to think that the people elected to help us are so impossibly far off the mark—and that they think they’re right.

The new “Needs Based” Ontario Autism Program is a disaster. In 2019 @MacLeodLisa loudly and repeatedly, pummelled the @OntLiberal, bellowing across the

6/ aisle, chastising them for allowing a Waitlist to grow to 23k children. Today that Waitlist is more than 50k children long. And while true that some will require support where others won’t (by the time their number is called), 50k children must first go through an

7/ administrative process that will take take. And so many families were out of time the day they registered for the Ontario Autism Program.

I have to stop listening to Question Period.

I can’t listen to continuous rhetoric that talks about how “good” things will be, versus

8/ focusing on the 50k kids that need help now. 50k kids that require TIME SENSITIVE help now. Kids that spent more than half their lives on waitlists who will be penalized for being too old once they get to the front of the line.

I can no longer listen to the daily, televised

9/ gaslighting that the Minister & Premier don’t even bother to show up for.

Sure, lump sum payments were dealt out to families, who then couldn’t access therapy on account of the pandemic or the massive capacity crisis in our province only made worse when @fordnation cut off

10/ the funding that kept their doors open. Funding shrouded in misinformation and red tape. Funding distributed without plans, guidance or even a reliable contact for assistance. Funding to seek out non-existent health care supports in the private sector. Funding that is all but

11/ useless to marginalized families and those Northern, rural or remote areas.

I am not hopeful. Tomorrow a child will be diagnosed and will automatically be faced with a Waitlist of 50k children before them. Autistic children are not supported. Families have been adrift for

12/ years waiting for actual, meaningful support. Anything out of the mouth of @fordnation et al. may be a nice idea, but is an outright misrepresentation of what is going on, and how families are actually affected by these policy changes. Meaningful, evidence-based clinical

13/ services have been put on hold unnecessarily for 2 and a half years. There is no getting that time back. And instead of focusing on the colossal mess that grows bigger every day—we hear about “the new program” that very well may be “needs based” but will cut severely affected

14/ children off at the knees, that is discriminatory and aged based, that makes zero promise and takes no assurances to ensure that needs will be MET, that is still an utter mystery after years, that is an EXPANDED VERSION OF THE @MacLeodLisa TRAINWRECK that @ToddSmithPC

15/ admitted was A MISTAKE.

50k children have parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and friends and therapists and teachers and I hope to whoever you believe in that they remember the unnecessary pain, confusion and helplessness that @fordnation inflicted on families

16/ when it comes time to vote in 2022.

I am angry. Disappointed. Demoralized.

I am frustrated. I am desperate. I am outright enraged.

I feel nothing more than vitriolic disgust for @OntarioPCParty.

I am sick of the lies. The misleading of the public. The dancing

17/ around both the issues and the stories that are hard to hear.

I am STILL looking at my watch.

And I have to stop watching Question Period. My tolerance for bullsh*t has been exceeded.

Prove me wrong @fordnation, @DrFullertonMPP, @JR_Ottawa.
#autismdoesntendatford

#autismdoesntendatford #onpoli #needsbasedtherapy #needsMETtherapy @TArmstrongNDP @JoelHardenONDP @AndreaHorwath @StevenDelDuca @JohnFraserOS @MikeSchreiner