Parents in Victoria are calling on the government to restore funding to an intensive autism program for children under six.

Last week, the Ministry of Children and Family Development announced cuts to the $5-million Early Intensive Behavioural Intervention program that helps 70 children across the province, 22 of those in Victoria.

It will end in January in order to increase “equity” for all B.C. families with autistic children, said Children and Family Development Minister Mary Polak.

The program costs the government $70,000 per child annually. Other autistic children receive $20,000 for therapy. That will be boosted by $2,000 in April equalizing funding across the board.

But at a meeting at the legislature Wednesday, a group of parents pled for the program to stay.

Cher Sherwood said her two boys would be “completely different people” without the program. Three-year-old Everett used to throw himself on the ground if lights were too bright or something was too smelly and Sherwood wondered whether her four-year-old son Crofton would ever hug her.

“He didn’t have one word, he was very non-verbal when we started. Within weeks he started talking. It’s incredible. It’s been phenomenal for our family,” she said.

Because of the program, her boys attend school without an aid worker and hug her every day. She wants other children with autism to have the same chance at life as her boys.

“I am furious. For a government to say we need to cut programs like this? No. They need to be expanded,” she said.

Polak said the EIBI program will equalize funding for the other 800 children with autism in B.C.

But Laurel Duruisseau, co-director of the Victoria Society for Children with Autism said it’s a valuable program, and will save money in the long run. “Although it only supports 70 children at a time, it’s constantly moving children out of the program. They graduate when they’re six, and more move in.”

She estimates 600 children have gone through the program in the last seven years and will save the government $1.2 billion in the long run.

But Polak highlighted the need to strike a balance between how much to give to each family and how many families can be provided for.

lweighton@vicnews.com