Victoria Vigil for lost children’s programs

Next Monday Victoria families will hold a candlelight vigil at the Legislature to protest the closure of the province's critical early intervention programs for autism (see notice below).

Children's Minister Mary Polak stopped funding the province's EIBI programs last fall to save $1.5 million annually, despite the desperate pleas of families and many studies confirming that these programs are hugely effective, saving on average $3 - 5 million PER CHILD in net lifetime costs to society (for more details and sources, see our EIBI Facts ).

As a result, at least 70 BC children per year will be denied the intensive early behaviour intervention that provided the only hope for these children and their families of a near-normal life, unless they can afford to privately pay tens of thousands annually to top up inadequate subsidies and susbstitute programs to replicate the benefits that only a full EIBI program can offer.

These children join thousands more in BC who are already being denied access to the early intervention supports and programs that they need, due to foolish and short-sighted policies that place enormous and unnecessary strains on other provincial services, such as education, health care, welfare, community living, social housing, justice, etc etc....

Minister Polak and her colleagues also ordered the closure of a series of other cirtical children's programs (which collectively don't put the tiniest dent in the current provincial deficit). These include the provincial Infant Development , Supported Child Care and Aboriginal Supported Child Care program, the Roots of Empathy program, FASD prevention, child and youth mental health and more - all of which will directly impact children and create significantly higher long-term costs than the meagre short-term budgetary savings.

These actions cruelly target the province's most vulnerable children and directly violate Premier Campbell's 2005 promise to build "the best system of supports in Canada for children with special needs."

Your support

We invite families outside of Victoria who can't make it to the vigil to show their support by signing and circulating our petition calling on Premier Campbell to honour his promises to BC's children with special needs and/or by writing their MLAs to remind them that BC families will not rest until these and other programs are restored, and that all children with special needs are able to get the basic help and support they need - in a timely manner and in a form that respects their individual needs and those of their families.

The petition can be accessed online here .

Find out more and support the ongoing FAIR campaign to restore EIBI programs on Facebook