Waste. That has been the theme of the Ontario Autism Program under the Ford government. Wasting time. Wasting money. That second point should concern Doug Ford, even if the first point doesn’t. Ford and his revolving door of Ministers might like to boast about the increased budget for the autism…

It’s been over 3 years since former MCCSS Minister Lisa MacLeod sent the Ontario Autism Program (OAP) into a downward spiral. Her attempt at “fixing” the program was a disaster, resulting in her removal from the file just months after launching her problematic Childhood Budget system. Former radio broadcaster…

MPP Robin Martin, Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Health Christine Elliott, appeared recently on The Agenda with Steve Paikan, along with OAO president Sheldon Salaba, to discuss the current optometry situation. Here’s the full clip of the discussion: The first step to fixing this issue is not nearly…

The Ford government and the Ontario Association of Optometrists are in a standoff right now, and a big reason is that both sides have much different opinions on what they consider to be “fair and reasonable.” As a quick primer, here’s the eye care services that are covered by OHIP…

It’s nearing 2 years since former minister Todd Smith received the OAP Advisory Panel Report to help redesign the autism program … the program that Lisa MacLeod completely destroyed in the PC government’s first crack at an overhaul back in February 2019. MacLeod was demoted in June 2019. Smith moved…

The Ontario Association of Optometrists has recently launched a campaign to help push the provincial government to fix a big issue that’s been brewing for decades. For some context, if you go to the government website discussing OHIP coverage for optometry, look at the first sentence:

With consultations well underway, I wanted to put together a brief version of what I believe a National Autism Strategy could look like. In February of last year I wrote a piece about how I thought the National Dementia Strategy looked to be a model of what we might expect…

The consultation process for the National Autism Strategy is underway, and I’m going to take you through what’s happening, and how you can get involved. Background It was in late 2019 that the federal government officially committed to developing and implementing a National Autism Strategy. In Minister of Health Patty Hajdu’s…

Invitation emails for the new core services pillar of the program finally started to go out yesterday (March 19th, 2021), beginning the first phase in the launch of core services (or at least the pilot program). Did the Ministry make any kind of announcement to share this information? Of course…