TORONTO The Ontario government is spending at least $778 million this year to make up for programs it cut in its 2019 budget and to invest in an autism plan after sparking outrage.

Premier Doug Ford s Progressive Conservative government said it would spend $163.8 billion this year in its fall economic statement, introduced by Finance Minister Rod Phillips at Queens Park on Wednesday.

Thats up $400 million from the $163.4 billion the government said it would spend in its April budget . The government, however, says its adding $1.3 billion in new spending because some of it came from a contingency fund that had already been accounted for in the total.

These are the reinstated expenses the PCs previously said theyd eliminate:

• $41 million for public health units,
• $26 million for land ambulance operations,
• $122 million for municipalities to use for child care,
• $310 million to fund the Transition Child Benefit and for people on social assistance, now that some of the PCs changes to Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program have been abandoned.

The government is also spending an additional $279 million on the Ontario Autism Program after its plan to cap funding for families was widely panned.

Some cuts to public health and child-care funding are still going ahead next year, but the provincial government decided against its original plan to force retroactive cuts through this year as well. Those cuts drew the ire of mayors and former Ontario health ministers , including one former Ontario PC health minister, who called the move downloading by stealth and drastic.

The other cuts that the PCs later reversed also caused outrage. Parents of children with autism chanted Doug Fords a liar outside the legislature in March and hurled insults at the minister inside the legislative chamber. Anti-poverty advocates said the elimination of the Transition Child Benefit, a monthly payment for low-income families who dont receive other benefits, would leave children in extreme poverty.