This follows on from my most recent Blog about the suicide of 19 year old Ashley Smith.
Simply stated, she was in the wrong system … primarily because the right and proper system does not exist here in Canada.
This fact was again highlighted in yesterday’s column of Christina Blizzard entitled ‘Most Vulnerable Are Suffering’ and focuses on the case of 19 year old Philippe Telford-Chiasson.
This teenager suffers from a number of conditions most notably severe Tourette's syndrome. He is completely unable to take care of himself and his parents – at their wits end – were forced recently to drop their son off at a local office of the provincial developmental services agency.
They simply could no longer care for their son in their home; their own health was suffering.
The problem for the Phillippe and others like him, is that there is no alternative housing for them and we can thank successive Liberal, NDP and Conservative Governments for this.
Indeed it was David Peterson’s Government in 1987 that started the ball rolling with their announcement that all institutions for the developmentally disabled in Ontario would be closed.
Their misguided thinking was that the Philippe’s of Ontario would be better served in their own homes or at least in their own communities.
The fact though, then and it is now, in most cases they cannot be cared for properly in their own homes – and alternative accommodation in their own communities is virtually non-existent.
The last three (3) institutions, including nearby Smith Falls were closed by the McGuinty Government in 2009.
We have a member of our own extended family who is much like Phillippe so this issue has touched me personally. My heart goes out to the Phillippe’s and their parents. I cannot imagine what it is like faced with dead-ends in their desire to see the best done for their child.
That said, I hold all Ontario Governments over the course of the last 25 years responsible for this sorry state. I particularly have the greatest distain for one Dalton McGuinty since it was he who promised back in 2003 that his if elected Premier, his new Government would provide Intensive Behavioural Intervention for all Autistic Children regardless of age.
In all the years that he was Premier – he never acted on his promise despite the fact that autism makes up a large percentage of Ontario’s developmentally disabled.
For me his failure ranks right up their with his reducing Ontario to Have-Not Status.
As I see it…
‘K.D. Galagher’