Meet the new Ontario government, same as the old Ontario government.

Wait, what?

Surely the government of the blunt-talking populist Premier Doug Ford, with its penchant to cut spending and chop up red tape, is nothing - nothing! - like the tax-and-spend people around former Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne, whose ideas were so progressive, she ran to the left of the NDP?

But it's true.

When it comes to the delicate and expensive business of services for children with autism, these two governments have been down the exact same road.

Once it all shakes down, we may even find that the current Progressive Conservative government is the biggest spender of all.

Children with autism are a vulnerable group. They often require intensive therapy. It's expensive, costing more than $1,000 a week for some.

In 2016, the Liberals faced enormous pressure from parents after they decided to take away government-funded access to intensive behaviour therapy for children aged five and older.

There was an outcry. People marched on Queen's Park. The Wynne government responded by adding hundreds more millions of dollars to the pot.

Fast forward to 2019. The Ford government, having inherited a sizable budget deficit from Wynne, tried to cut costs.

But by then, there were 23,000 children on the waiting list for services. Three out of four children who needed help weren't getting it.

Then-community and social services minister Lisa MacLeod announced a plan to give a set amount of funding to every family based on their income and the age of the child, but not on the complexity of the child's needs.

This would eliminate the wait list. But parents rebelled. They said the amount per family would be a mere drop in the bucket when it came to paying the bills. Many said they'd rather wait and get the full coverage.

It was a public-relations disaster for the Tories.

"This has been the toughest and most damaging file of our first year in office," said a report on the issue, received by Ford last month from Toronto-area MPP Roman Baber.

He called for an immediate reset of the issue.

And, just like Wynne before him, Ford listened.

Children, Community and Social Services Minister Todd Smith has said the government is "certainly sorry for the anxiety this has caused parents across Ontario.

"We didn't get the redesign right the first time," Smith said Monday. "I'm here to tell you that we will, now."

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A panel of experts is advising the government on how a new system should allocate resources.

The PCs have pledged to spend $600 million a year, 47 per cent more than the $318 million spent in 2017-18 by the previous government.

If the promise holds, it could be life-changing for tens of thousands of children and their families.

"We know the previous program was not moving in the right direction," said Kitchener South-Hespeler MPP Amy Fee, who is parliamentary assistant to Smith and has two children with autism herself.

"We're working on building that trust back," she said. "We need a long-term solution."

It sounds too good to be true. Could the same politicians who chopped financial aid for post-secondary students, cut funding to the arts and cancelled environmental programs really have been so moved by the plight of children with autism that they changed course for them?

If so, it has surely raised everyone's expectations for this government.

NOTE: This story has been updated to correct the amount the PC government plans to spend on autism service this year and the amount the previous government spent in 2017-18.

ldamato@therecord.com

Twitter: @DamatoRecord

- Province reverses course on autism program

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