ONTARIO FELL THOUSANDS SHORT OF ITS AUTISM PROGRAM TARGET, NEW FIGURES SHOW

The Ford government fell thousands of spaces short of its own target to provide core clinical services to children with autism by fall 2022, figures obtained by Global News show.

The province set a target of signing up 8,000 Ontario children with autism into its newly created needs-based therapy program by the fall of 2022. By August, however, it had reportedly managed to register just 888 children, leaving officials with a seemingly impossible task to hit the target.