Richard Hackett’s eight-year-old son Austin has waited four years for occupational therapy services in Ontario, placed on the waitlist when he was four years old and still waiting as he navigates school with a learning disability and ADHD. The family received a school-based assessment with no follow-up, no results shared, no clarity about whether support might arrive or when. Hackett started a petition calling for healthcare and education to become constitutionally protected rights, gathering nearly 7,700 signatures in three weeks.
The Ontario Autism Coalition released survey data showing families wait an average of five years to receive funding for core services, and freedom of information requests revealed that fewer than one in four children registered with the Ontario Autism Program receive the funding needed to access those services. Children spend their entire elementary school years on waitlists while the developmental windows that make early intervention effective close, while learning gaps widen, while families absorb the costs of private assessment and therapy or watch their children struggle without support the government acknowledges they need but refuses to fund.
Hackett’s MP Peter Fragiskatos committed to bringing the petition before the House of Commons while noting the jurisdictional complexity—provinces control healthcare and education, courts cannot set budgets, the legal mechanisms remain unclear. The response embodies how Canadian federalism functions to diffuse accountability, allowing every level of government to gesture toward limitations while children wait years for services that should arrive immediately.
Hackett states the stakes plainly: “Without the proper support, he’ll fall behind in society. Without the proper education on top of it, he’ll struggle throughout the rest of his life.” The petition closes April 3, 2026. Austin will be nine years old, five years into waiting for help that every professional agrees he needs.
Read the full CBC article and SIGN THE PETITION!
-
Kamloops mother speaks after district ignored daughter’s dyslexia for thirteen years
‘She was failed’: Mother speaks out after Kamloops student’s dyslexia ignored tell the story of Heather Morrison. She spent thirteen years asking teachers and principals to assess her daughter for learning disabilities, watching her child move through kindergarten to graduation while reading at…
