President's Message

New developmental services bill misses the mark

August 8, 2008

Today (Aug. 8) I had the opportunity to address the Standing Committee of the Legislature on Social Policy about our concerns on Bill 77, the act that will change the way developmental services are delivered in Ontario.

OPSEU represents 8,000 people who provide supports to people with developmental disabilities.

We recognize that new legislation is long overdue but as written Bill 77 will lead to the erosion of the quality supports that agencies are now able to provide.

We have three serious concerns:

Our biggest concern is the creation of individualized budgets through the ‘assessment process’. This bill sets out a needs assessment of each person with a developmental disability and then attaches a dollar value to the service needs of that person. Agencies will then receive the funding that comes with that person for their service needs and won’t receive the administrative/overhead costs that go along with running an agency. Agencies will lose funding stability and be forced to cut corners.

The bill creates third-party brokers to purchase private services for families. The reforms will force most families now on waiting lists to turn to these brokers, who will take an automatic cut off the top and then find the lowest bidder to provide services. This provision in the bill opens the entire sector to privatization and lowest common denominator service provision, as we’ve seen in the competitive bidding process in home care. It doesn't work in home care, and won't work in developmental services.

Lastly, we are very concerned that the assessment process will lead to a loss of services to some people now receiving high levels of support. This could result in the loss of services for some already in the system, as was also seen in the home care sector.

Bill 77 as written will harm community-based developmental service agencies and the quality of care they are able to provide. The people our members work so hard to support need quality care they can count on, and our members are the experts in how this can be provided.

In solidarity,

Warren (Smokey) Thomas

President