Archived News
November 21, 2004
Letter to Families of Children with ASD,
Many families have been contacting ACT- Autism Community Training Society fearful at the implications of Friday’s Supreme Court Decision (link below). Anxiety is very high at the prospect that autism funding will be removed as a result of the decision. Following are some thoughts that may give comfort to families that all is not lost; community awareness of the potential and needs of our children is at an unprecedented level and we need to build on that.
While the Supreme Court decision is a devastating blow to the hopes of families, the families who devoted so much time arguing the needs of our children in the courts and achieved the historic success of the Auton decision have done all children with ASD an enormous service that will not be easily lost. They deserve our continuing respect and appreciation for their willingness to stand-up for what they believed.
There is no appeal of a Supreme Court decision; however; this case did not address all the issues of discrimination that could be argued on behalf of our children. It focused on coverage by the Medical Services Plan. Other groups of parents may well decide that there are other grounds that could prove fruitful to pursue and indeed are already doing so in the courts. The Autism Society of Canada reports that there are 180 other cases in front of the courts on related issues across Canada.
There is another avenue; however, which could achieve the recognition of the rights of all children with disabilities. Now would be an ideal time for disability groups to come together and consider a plan to press our federal legislators to develop a national legislative agenda that would enshrine the rights of all children with disabilities to appropriate therapeutic interventions.
In Canada we have focused our attention on our provincial governments because they control the implementation of health, education and social services policy and budgets. However, it is the federal government that controls the purse strings and can set a national policy tied to those purse strings. If we look south we see that American parents of children with all types of disabilities were successful decades ago in passing federal legislation ensuring that early intervention would be delivered by state Ministries of Education, with federal funding tightly tied to proper standards.
It is not clear yet what our next step should be – it is time for discussion and contemplation and to reach out to other disabilities groups to discuss these issues. Meanwhile, parents should take comfort from the political reality that the provincial government has a large budget surplus. With an election looming, it is highly unlikely that they will decide to slash the current funding for children with ASD before the May 2005 elections, particularly as they committed to it prior to the last election.
Now is the time to come together to press for commitment, from all provincial political parties, to preserve and enhance services for individuals with autism and other disabilities. Regardless of the Supreme Court decision, parents have the right to lobby their M.L.A.’s and M.P.’s to ensure that the rights of our most vulnerable citizens, our children and adults with disabilities, are enshrined in legislation.
Respectfully yours,
Deborah Pugh
Co-ordinator
ACT – Autism Community Training
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