Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles made mental health the main focus of her talking points during Question Period at Queen’s Park on Monday.
With Premier Doug Ford absent, Stiles aimed her fire at Merrilee Fullerton, Minister of Children, Community and Social Services.
“This government’s words don’t hold any weight with these families that are here with us today because it doesn’t match their reality. Not one bit,” said Stiles.
Stiles’s spoke of 60,000 kids with autism on a waitlist for medical treatment.
She said the Progressive Conservative government isn’t doing much to address reducing that number.
“The waitlist has more than doubled since the conservative government came into power. Children are waiting a minimum of four years for any kind of services or even assessment,” said Stiles.
“Four years that can make all the difference for that child’s quality of life and this government is sitting on almost $6.5 billion dollars unspent,” said Stiles.
Fullerton proceeded to discuss what the government has done to affect the children on the waitlist, and outlined the government’s plans.
“We have doubled the funding, we have five times more children receiving services than any time under the previous Liberal government. And let’s be clear when we came to office, we understood that the old program under the Liberal government, we had a little prospect for delivering services to 75 per cent of the children who were waiting,” Fullerton said.
“That’s why we have doubled the funding,” she said.
Following that response, Stiles addressed the minister once more, saying that what the government has done isn’t good enough.
“At this rate. It’s going to take 66 years just to clear the existing backlog. None of us are going to be here in 66 years,” she said.
“The families here today have come to Queen’s Park from across the province to tell their stories to be heard to demand change after this government’s shocking failure to support autistic children and they deserve real accountability,” said Stiles.
Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, Michael Tibollo, also answered questions on the issue, speaking about the work the government has done in addressing the mental health concerns amongst Ontarians.
“We came up with a roadmap to wellness which is a basic plan, a foundational document that looks after lifespan so it looks after investments required for children and youth, for adults for seniors. For people with addictions and concurrent disorders. We backed it with a $525 million dollar a year plan $3.8 billion over 10 years,” said Tibollo.
Stiles also extended a motion to the government to slash wait times, and invest in community mental health care. She disagreed with the current plans the government has implemented.
“It’s a roadmap to nowhere right now. I’ll tell you, we are in a mental health crisis in every community in this province,” said Stiles.
“The government’s not even trying to pretend they’re just failing miserably.”
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