Liberal MPP to apologize for calling cops on mom protesting cuts to autism therapy
Posted May 25, 2016 04:37:56 AM.
Last Updated May 25, 2016 04:43:44 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO – Premier Kathleen Wynne has told a Liberal backbencher to apologize for calling the police on the mother of an autistic child who had threatened a protest at his constituency office.
Wynne will meet later today with MPP Bob Delaney, but says she told him on the phone to apologize to Melanie Palaypayon.
Palaypayon is one of many parents upset about changes to eligibility rules for Intensive Behavioural Intervention for their autistic children.
Wynne says constituency office staff can be intimidated by protesters, but insists people have a right to speak out against the funding changes, which will deny IBI therapy to children over the age of five.
The government has decided instead to transition those children to “enhanced” Applied Behavioural Analysis treatment.
Parents whose children had been for years on the wait list are fuming that they no longer qualify for government-funded IBI therapy.
