KITCHENER - Jennifer St-Pierre, one of about 200 people protesting the Ford government's looming changes to autism therapy funding rules in front of a Deer Ridge plaza on Friday, had a quiet, attentive audience.

Kitchener-South Conservative MPP Amy Fee stood before her.

A Guelph mother of one child with autism faced the mother of two children with autism, not far from Fee's constituency office in the same plaza.

St-Pierre's voice cracked. Her emotion picked up with the breeze. Her six-year-old daughter Emilie has severe autism. She's been on a therapy wait list for 22 months. The Tory changes mean there could be little, if any, funding for Emilie even if the new rules wipe out wait lists.

"You're giving our children a life sentence," St-Pierre told Fee on an icy sidewalk with the regional water tower in the distance behind St-Pierre.

"As an autism parent, how do you sign off on that? It's absolutely heartbreaking to us as parents. We need you to be our voice, Amy. We need you to be on our side."

Fee nodded. She appeared to mouth a thank you, then walked on to listen to their impassioned pleas near the end of the hour-long protest. St-Pierre, facing a second mortgage for the six hours of therapy Emilie now gets weekly, stood with her husband Christian.

To get Emilie 30 hours a week of therapy, they'll pay $80,000 a year. The new rules mean they'll see a maximum of $5,000 a year soon.

"She's a smart kid," St-Pierre said, pausing as her voice cracked.

Parents of kids with autism came from as far away as Windsor to wave placards in the lunch-hour cold. They denounced the apparent end of therapy funding based on needs in the name of ending wait lines.

One size fits all fits no one, they said.

Funding is to be capped at $20,000 a year for behavioural therapies that cost four times that amount. Funding will dip to $5,000 a year per child once they turn six. A lifetime cap of $140,000 will be introduced.

"Equity is not equality!" the crowd chanted.

A small group of organizers and parents got to meet with Fee on Friday to discuss their outrage and what might be done.

"We were able to say a lot of things to Amy," said Waterloo's Sarah Jones, protest organizer and mother to two daughters with autism.

"Amy didn't say a heck of a lot back to us, unfortunately. She doesn't have answers about the program that are critical for us to know. What about changes to education? If we're not getting therapy then we have to send them to school. What's going to happen to the school system? No clue."

Comment was sought from Fee after she left the protest. None was immediately received.

Cars and transports passing by along King Street honked their support for the protesters as Waterloo's Ezra Davids, a 10-year-old boy with autism who gets therapy at Oak Bridge Academy in Cambridge, stood on a snowbank and held a sign high.

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"I hate these cuts more than I hate crowds," his sign read.

Davids has been on a wait list for funding for two years. His parents spend over $22,000 a year for his therapy. He could only get $5,000 under the Tory changes.

"I want to deliver the message that pretty much everybody needs funding," said Davids, wearing a Calgary Flames tuque for his cousins who live in Alberta. "I just think it was a really terrible idea to cut the funding."

Many of the kids at the protest, like seven-year-old Rory Small, had fun sliding down the snowy gully between the sidewalk and plaza. Monica Small of Cambridge held onto the leash of her black lab Preston, the service dog for Rory, while her son played.

Rory also goes to Oak Bridge Academy. The principal for the special needs school was at the protest too. It costs $70,000 a year in therapy for Rory, who is talking now after years of being nonverbal. The province now picks up that tab. Because of the rule changes announced last week, the Smalls expect to be on the hook for a huge $65,000 annual bill.

They fear their funding will be discontinued at the end of May.

"I think I've cried pretty much every day since last Wednesday," said Monica Small, who is unsure if Rory will be able to continue at Oak Bridge.

But Small worries the opportunities that Rory has already been given will be denied to many others.

"I'm very fortunate that my son has been able to tell me that he loves me," she said. "A lot of families don't get that - and they might not get the opportunity to hear those words if they don't get the help they need."

jhicks@therecord.com

Twitter: @HicksJD