Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
As parents continue to navigate the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is growing frustration with the federal government for not living up to a promise made years ago on a national autism strategy.
The situation has now reached a point where some families are seeking solutions south of the border.
For one Saskatchewan family, the struggle to access support has taken years.
Sheri Radoux is the mother of three teenagers, two of which have autism. She says that her family used to live in the U.S. where they had better access to therapies and have decided to move back after what she described as a shameful and frustrating experience in Canada that’s left her family feeling hopeless.
"It’s so much more robust and structured," Radoux said of autism support in the U.S. "There’s checks and balances and accountability – all of that lacks in Canada."
Radoux said Massachusetts offers a wide range of autism therapies in school and added that some states have mandated health coverage that includes autism treatment.
While there are support programs and services in Canada, advocated believe the big difference is that the U.S. has federal oversight, which Canada still lacks.
The federal government committed in 2019 to developing a national autism strategy, but consultations have only just started.
Experts say it’s common for families to move and seek better health services when they feel like they aren’t getting the care they need.
"It is a really common story, and that’s a result of fragmented and inequitable service delivery," Deepa Singal, director of Scientific and Data Initiatives at the Canadian Autism Spectrum Disorder Alliance (CASDA), told CTV National News. "Moving to a province with better support could mean the difference of a nonverbal child saying, ‘mommy’ or ‘daddy’ one day."
CTV National News spoke with a Canadian family living in Buffalo, N.Y. Sarah Ruth said their 10-year-old son has been receiving nearly 30 hours a week of different therapies since he was two.
"Without those therapists coming into my house and showing me how to help him, he probably wouldn’t be potty trained," Ruth said, adding that she’ll never return to the country she once called home.
"My son is not welcome in Canada, they’ve made that painfully clear,” she said. “To come back would be a disservice to him because he would lose everything."
Ruth estimates that her son receives US$100,000 a year in support through the state of New York’s education system. In comparison, a child in a similar position would receive only $5,000 from the Ontario government.
Ruth said she hasn’t "paid a dime" for any of her son’s autism services.
Advocates believe there are supportive services in Canada -- they’re just scattered across the country and need more federal oversight.
“We are really failing to properly support autistic Canadians,” said Jill Farber, the executive director of Autism Speaks Canada. “Access to affordable programming needs to be equitable across Canada, no matter where you live, no matter what stage of life you’re at and no matter what language you speak.”
Advocates say that while services vary depending on the province, having a National Autism Strategy that works with the healthcare system would help align services across the country.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.