A governance problem, not a funding problem

One evidentiary letter. Four recipients.

On April 26, 2026, we sent a fully evidenced letter to the Official Opposition Critic for Children and Youth with Support Needs (CYSN) and to three Ministers whose portfolios are affected by the February 2026 restructuring of Autism funding.

• Reann Gasper, MLAAbbotsford-Mission, Official Opposition Critic for Child Care and CYSN
• Hon. Jodie WickensMinister of Children and Family Development
• Hon. Brenda BaileyMinister of Finance
• Hon. Josie OsborneMinister of Health

What we acknowledge

The February 2026 announcement does include welcome elements: a $475 million envelope over three years, $80 million for community-service expansion, and the extension of individualized support to children with Down syndrome, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), cerebral palsy and other neurodevelopmental conditions previously excluded. Our concerns are not with the principle of expanded eligibility.

What we are challenging

This briefing walks through the six bodies of evidence the letter relies on. All facts are drawn from MCFD's own published documents, the Auditor General, and verified public reporting.

Over 10,000 Autistic children will receive less support

On announcement day, the Minister herself said: "About 5,000 children may be getting less benefits."

The Ministry's figure doesn't match its own Autism Funding data

The Minister's figure is about 8,500 Autistic children lower than the Ministry's own published Autism Funding data. The Ministry has not explained where its figure comes from. To keep our estimates conservative, we used the Minister's lower figure. Using the Ministry's own case data instead, the number of Autistic children left behind would be higher.

The range of Autistic children left behind

The Supplement: smaller, gated, late

• Income-tested. It phases out at $200,000 adjusted family net income (FAQ, p.5). Current Autism Funding is not income-tested.
• Gated by the federal Disability Tax Credit (DTC). At an online parent meeting on March 31, 2026, Assistant Deputy Minister Emily Horton told parents that 30% to 40% of active AFU cases do not have an approved DTC on file.
• Late. The Supplement does not begin paying families until July 2027, three months after Autism Funding ends on March 31, 2027.
• Community-based services for children and teens do not expand until spring 2028, one year after Autism Funding ends.

The quality of care was "unknown": the Auditor General's word

In the same year, an independent audit and a Ministry-commissioned consultant reached the same conclusion: MCFD was not monitoring what its contractors were doing.

Auditor General, June 2019: Oversight of Contracted Residential Services

The audit examined approximately 100 contracted service providers: agencies providing housing, food and supports for some of the most vulnerable children and youth in care, including those with highly complex needs.

The Auditor General described the quality of care in contracted residential services as "unknown," because the Ministry was not monitoring it. The audit also found:

• No province-wide strategy. The system had evolved "on an ad hoc basis to respond to individual and emergency situations."
• MCFD "did not have a good sense of what services [its contractors] were providing or the skill sets of their staff."
• In serious cases, "similar issues were found in subsequent investigations." Recommendations were made, and the same problems recurred.
• Change initiatives had "lost momentum, be it due to senior leadership changes, emerging issues or a need to respond to crisis situations."

Ernst & Young, October 2019: the full Ministry contract portfolio

Unlike the Auditor General's residential-services audit, the Ernst & Young (EY) review covered MCFD's full portfolio: all 11,157 contracts with 6,516 providers, totalling $1.25 billion a year, across all six core business areas.

The maturity framework has five levels: Basic, Developing, Established, Advanced and Leading. EY notes that organizations "generally aim to be at the 'Established' level at a minimum." MCFD was below that benchmark across every dimension assessed.

Key risks EY identified in 2019

"Setting a precedent of unaccountability with service providers from a lack of monitoring, evaluation and oversight of contracts."

"Unintended consequences for clients if the Ministry does not know the quality of services it is purchasing."

Ernst & Young, MCFD Contract Management Review, 2019

$6,000 vs. $228,749 per child, per year

The Ministry is reducing family-managed funding accountable to each child's own parents, while spending many times more per child in a contracted system it does not adequately monitor.

What the Ministry pays per child in two systems

A government-wide pattern of unmonitored contracting

A May 2025 Financial Risk Assessment by BC's Internal Audit and Advisory Services examined professional services contracts across ten ministries.

That audit looked at professional services contracts (STOB 60), not the community social service agreements (STOB 79 and 80) under which CYSN services are delivered. We do not claim the specific percentages apply to CYSN. We do claim these findings reflect a government-wide culture of contracting without consistent vendor oversight, the same culture the 2019 EY review identified at MCFD specifically.

The evidence base MCFD cited for restructuring

One in four, after six years

In 2019, MCFD accepted all four of the Auditor General's recommendations. As of March 31, 2025, only one had been independently verified as complete.

The Auditor General's scorecard for MCFD's 2019 recommendations

The pace of change

• 2024 follow-up: 0 of 4 recommendations completed.
• 2025 follow-up: 1 of 4 recommendations completed.
• One verified completion in six years across the four recommendations MCFD itself accepted. That is not reform. It is drift.

What MCFD has done

Self-reported progress is not independent verification

The Auditor General's own judgment as of October 2025, based on reviewing MCFD's submitted evidence, remains that three of four recommendations are not complete.

One year. No speech therapy. A non-speaking child waiting.

The Prince Rupert Family Connection Centre, a pilot hub for the model now being scaled across British Columbia, opened late, opened understaffed, and left families worse off than before it took over.

The contract

The province committed $25 million over five years to North Coast Community Services Society (NCCS), a local non-profit that previously provided child care and family supports but had no experience delivering speech therapy, behaviour therapy or occupational therapy. According to CTV News reporting (March 2024), NCCS was the only bidder for the contract.

The transition gap

Families in Prince Rupert and Haida Gwaii experienced a direct, documented gap in services during the transition, because Northern Health had already stopped providing the services the hub was replacing.

One family

In March 2023, a mother put her five-year-old son, who is Autistic and non-speaking, on a waitlist for speech therapy. One year later, he had not received a single appointment. Some parents reported that their children's appointments had actually become less frequent since the hub took over from Northern Health. (CTV News, March 14, 2024)

A speech therapist working for the Prince Rupert school district noted that early intervention is crucial for non-speaking children, and under ideal circumstances begins before their first birthday.

The province knew

These problems were playing out publicly in March 2024. Yet in February 2026, nearly two years later, MCFD announced it would end individualized Autism Funding province-wide and scale this hub model across British Columbia.

Cutting family funding, expanding unmonitored contracts

This is not a funding problem. It is a governance problem.

What is happening, in one paragraph

MCFD is telling families of Autistic children that individualized funding (money families manage themselves, with providers they trust, on timelines that work for their children) is no longer sustainable or appropriate. Over 10,000 Autistic children will receive less support than they receive today. Approximately 5,400 will receive no direct funding at all. Several thousand more will qualify only for a means-tested, DTC-gated Supplement that pays less than current funding. These families are being directed toward a contractor-delivered hub system.

What MCFD's own reports confirm about that contractor system

• In 2019, both the Auditor General and Ernst & Young documented that the Ministry did not know what quality of service its contractors were providing.
• EY found contractual obligations were "not routinely monitored, enforced or reported on."
• EY warned of a systemic precedent of unaccountability with service providers.
• Six years on, the Auditor General confirms MCFD has implemented only one of the four reforms it promised.
• Its own pilot hub in Prince Rupert left families worse off than before it opened.

The accreditation question that deserves a public answer

MCFD's accreditation policy, in place since at least 2005/2006, requires all contracted service providers receiving $500,000 or more in annual public funding to obtain independent third-party accreditation. The June 2024 policy update was designed to strengthen enforcement and clarify consequences for non-compliance. That such an update was needed, nearly two decades after the policy came into force, suggests enforcement has been inconsistent.

The cost of this governance failure, measured in unmonitored care, broken promises, and developmental windows that close while children wait, is being borne by the children this Ministry exists to protect.

What we asked of each recipient

We asked each recipient to act within the scope of their own role (legislative, programmatic, fiscal and clinical) on the evidence MCFD's own documents have established.

To MLA Reann Gasper, Critic for CYSN

1. Raise this contradiction publicly and in the Legislature, asking the Minister of Children and Family Development to explain how MCFD justifies restructuring family funding while directing families to a contractor system its own 2019 reviews confirmed it was not monitoring.
2. Demand a full public accounting from MCFD of why three of four 2019 Auditor General recommendations remain unimplemented, how many providers are out of compliance with the accreditation policy, what measurable improvements have been made since 2019, and what remediation has been provided to families in Prince Rupert and Haida Gwaii.
3. Ask the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth to call for an independent follow-up performance audit of MCFD's contractor oversight.
4. Call for Direct Admit eligibility to include Autism at all DSM-5 levels until MCFD can provide clear planning and public accountability, including disclosure of the cross-ministry Child and Youth Wellbeing Plan.
5. Ask the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts to scrutinize the three outstanding 2019 recommendations and require MCFD to report publicly on a firm completion timeline.
6. Pause the transition to community-based services until MCFD can demonstrate, with evidence rather than assurances, that the contracted system meets a standard of accountability its own documents confirm it has not yet achieved.

To Hon. Jodie Wickens, Minister of Children and Family Development

We asked the Ministry to extend current individualized Autism Funding pending: a full public accounting on the three outstanding Auditor General recommendations, an independent assessment of Prince Rupert's service delivery record, a formal fiscal impact analysis of the restructuring, public disclosure of the Child and Youth Wellbeing Plan, and evidence (not assurances) that the contracted hub system meets independently verified quality standards before families are required to depend on it.

To Hon. Brenda Bailey, Minister of Finance

1. Request a formal fiscal impact analysis from MCFD of the projected downstream costs of the February 2026 restructuring, including the expansion of contracted community services, and report it publicly. For context, Budget 2026 projects a $13.3 billion deficit in 2026/27, followed by deficits of $12.2 billion and $11.4 billion.
2. Direct Internal Audit and Advisory Services to carry out a follow-on assessment of MCFD's contracted-services portfolio, using the method of the May 2025 government-wide Financial Risk Assessment, to confirm that expanded Ministry spending will flow through a system with adequate vendor monitoring.

To Hon. Josie Osborne, Minister of Health

1. Direct Northern Health to document the scope and length of the care gap that followed its withdrawal of paediatric therapy services in Prince Rupert and Haida Gwaii, and to report on what health-system remediation has been provided to affected families.
2. Work with MCFD on health-system backstops for the province-wide rollout, so that where contracted hubs fail to deliver timely paediatric speech, occupational or behavioural therapy, regional health authorities have a clear mandate to step in, rather than families being left without services.