Roman Baber – A History in Tweets

We’ve already seen great summary pieces about MPP Roman Baber’s report from Mike Moffatt and Louis Busch, but I wanted to add a few thoughts … by following the tweets.

If we go back to February, Baber tweeted the same thing all Ontario PC MPPs did (likely as instructed):

There was also this one, from a couple days before that:

Not quite on script, but it fell in line with the PC waitlist narrative.

He didn’t seem to tweet about autism for a while after that, but then when talk of enhancements started up, we get this:

Now take a look at this thread below that came out the following week. He talked about meeting Angela Brandt in mid-February, a parent who has a son with autism, and pledged to meet with her every other Friday going forward.

Now isn’t that interesting?

Taking an interest. Listening. Continuing a dialogue. Opening his eyes to the world many of us with an autism connection live in, but that most really have no idea about. Refreshing, isn’t it?

Also: NEEDS BASED THERAPY.

A few days later, he was involved in a roundtable:

Fast forward to a few days ago, the Globe and Mail posts the story about his now infamous report. In it he says he was asked on April 2nd “to review certain components of the Government’s proposal plan for an improved Ontario Autism Program.”

Following the leak of the report to G&M, he made the following statement:

A few people revealed on Twitter that they were involved with some of the development of the report, and he gladly acknowledged them with a retweet:

Nancy Marchese is a BCBA, as well as a psychologist, so she brings a wealth of knowledge on both the diagnosis and therapy sides of autism.

Hey, it’s Angela! The mom who reached out to Roman, and became a regular in his office. She has a background as a statistician, and so together with being an autism parent she also brings some valuable insight to the table.

Sharing credit where credit is due. Class.

What’s important to consider here, apart from the time, effort, and collaboration that Roman Baber put into creating this report, is that he is a member of the Ontario PC Party. By straying from the regular talking points, being extremely candid in his report, and having an opinion … he put his neck on the line. I mean it’s clear the report was created as an internal document, and he likely didn’t expect it to come out in the way it did, but even internally he was taking a strong stand by not holding back in identifying all the problems in the way he did.

He didn’t defend the program. He did the exact opposite. For this, I am grateful.

Although his plan had some amazing content, there is still work to be done. The report is in the hands of the Advisory Panel now. It has great bones, but needs some finishing touches.

I sincerely hope that Roman Baber’s hard work gets the attention and review it deserves.

I echo ONTABA’s sentiments exactly.

Hope is renewed.