BACKGROUND INFOCurrently in the Region of Peel, there are 500 children with autism enrolled in public elementary and high schools. However, there are two thousand people under the age of twenty-one who have been diagnosed with the condition. This means that approximately 1500 autistic children not attending school. The Peel Catholic School Board has a 7-year high school program. Summer camps and other community center programs have long waiting lists for special needs specific admission, and once a family gets their child into these programs, they do not withdrawal from them for as long as they can. One of the reasons for both the lack of spaces and the withdrawal is the lack of government funding. On the provincial level, Dalton McGuinty has cut funding for autistic and developmentally challenged children who are older than 6 years old. Federally, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has eliminated the Daycare Bonus for all children, and no doubt that some of these cheques from the government went towards accommodating parents of special needs children.
