Legal costs should be giving therapy to hundreds of autistic kids in Ontario

A northern Ontario M. P. P. continues to pursue the question of how much it has cost the Ontario government to fight a class-action lawsuit against parents of autistic children.

In November 2004 parents of autistic children decided to take the Ontario government to court to get money to pay for therapy. At that time: "The government says the cutoff at the age of six is needed because it opens up spaces in the program for children on the waiting list. However, in an audit released earlier this month, Ontario's provincial auditor said the autism program has been operating at a surplus since it was created five years ago. " Since then the McGuinty government has been fighting these parents, and Shelley Martel wanted to know how much the government was actually spending in this battle. "Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner ruled in my favour that this information should be made public. Remember, it is after all taxpayers' money. " On March 14, 2007 Martel was hit with a legal action by the Ontario government. "McGuinty balked and decided to spend more public money to pursue litigation against myself and the Information and Privacy Commission in the hopes that I will give up and go away. " I, for one, hope Martel stays on their tail, especially after the Osprey Media found public access to all sorts of information is not as transparent as the government would want you to believe. I don't feel as free as I once did. The McGuinty government is afraid to admit that the grotesque amount spent on legal wrangling, could have, in the real world, given therapy to hundreds of autistic children.