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When Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty wrote a letter in September of 2003 to Nancy Morrison, the mother of an autistic son, he had no way of knowing it would come back to haunt him four years later.

Ms. Morrison had asked all three political leaders during the 2003 election campaign for their party's position on funding the cost of therapy after autistic children reach age 6. She told the leaders she would e-mail their responses far and wide.

Mr. McGuinty promised in the letter to end the previous Progressive Conservative government's "unfair and discriminatory" practice of cutting off funding when children turned 6. "These children need - and deserve - our help and support," the letter says.

The problem for Mr. McGuinty is that Ms. Morrison kept her end of the bargain and he didn't.

It was not until two years after he was in office - when the courts ruled in July of 2005 that the province was violating the children's constitutional rights by denying them treatment - that Mr. McGuinty lived up to his promise.

He has the politically savvy activist to thank for the fact that his letter found its way to families as far away as Europe, Saudi Arabia and New Zealand, thrusting services for autistic children into the spotlight in the current election campaign. The topic has been embraced by both the New Democrats and the Progressive Conservatives.

The rising incidence of autism alone does not explain why the issue has been front and centre - the disease affects one in 165 children. It's also because the campaign has revolved around two issues - Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory's contentious plan to fund faith-based schools and Mr. McGuinty's broken promises. The one involving autism was considered so egregious because it involved vulnerable children.

"A lot of people in our community changed their vote to Liberal because of those promises," said Ms. Morrison, the New Democrat candidate in the riding of York-Simcoe. "This was one of his biggest broken promises."

Mary Anne Chambers, who served as the Liberal Minister of Children and Youth Services, said her party more than tripled annual spending on autism services to $140-million, doubled the number of children receiving intensive behavioural intervention therapy and dramatically reduced the waiting list for assessing children. There are 900 children on the waiting list.

The IBI therapy, a system of behaviour modification to teach autistic children language skills and how to play appropriately, costs an average of $70,000 a year for each child.

But even Ms. Chambers conceded that autism has generated more than its share of interest in the current campaign.

"It's a little bit of an interesting one, to say the least," she said in an interview. "It's one of those things that has a very political character to it."

Mr. McGuinty's letter has been quoted repeatedly by Ms. Morrison and other parents at rallies and at the provincial legislature, who have reminded politicians repeatedly of the emotional and financial toll autism takes on families.

Ms. Morrison said she and her husband have nearly gone broke refinancing their home in Bradford, Ont., to pay for treatment for their eight-year-old son, Sean, who spends mornings at home with his IBI therapist and afternoons in a Grade 4 classroom.

Sean is of average to above-average intelligence, Ms. Morrison said. "We just need to work at getting it out of him."