Canada Tables Conversion Therapy Ban

[krypton iodine sulfur]

https://globalnews.ca/news/6649396/canada-conversion-therapy-ban-legislation/

Bill C-8 was introduced recently in Parliament.
https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/43-1/bill/C-8/first-reading

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to, among other things, create the following offences:
(a) causing a person to undergo conversion therapy against the person’s will;
(b) causing a child to undergo conversion therapy;
(c) doing anything for the purpose of removing a child from Canada with the intention that the child undergo conversion therapy outside Canada;
(d) advertising an offer to provide conversion therapy; and
(e) receiving a financial or other material benefit from the provision of conversion therapy.

A-C I have no issue with. D and E... I don't know. It's one thing to say that public health insurance funds can't be applied to conversion therapy, but there is only so much you can do to protect people from themselves if they want to seek these services out.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I would definitely support A - D.
It's one thing if you mention to your drinking buddy that you want to open your third eye with a drill, or pierce your scrotum, or tattoo your eyeball, or deconvert your gay tendencies, and he looks it up on the internet.
"One weekend, five bucks for supplies, and a few simple household tools!" You can do whatever you want.
But presenting yourself to strangers as a professional trepanning guide, preying on guilt, shame, feasr, superstition? I am okay with criminalizing that.
Of course, i would also arrest a woman i knew who attended three greek festivals and decided to charge for bellydancing lessons.

 

[Jarhyn]

https://globalnews.ca/news/6649396/canada-conversion-therapy-ban-legislation/

Bill C-8 was introduced recently in Parliament.
https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/43-1/bill/C-8/first-reading

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to, among other things, create the following offences:
(a) causing a person to undergo conversion therapy against the person’s will;
(b) causing a child to undergo conversion therapy;
(c) doing anything for the purpose of removing a child from Canada with the intention that the child undergo conversion therapy outside Canada;
(d) advertising an offer to provide conversion therapy; and
(e) receiving a financial or other material benefit from the provision of conversion therapy.

A-C I have no issue with. D and E... I don't know. It's one thing to say that public health insurance funds can't be applied to conversion therapy, but there is only so much you can do to protect people from themselves if they want to seek these services out.

D is warranted because it is false advertising. It should not be legal to sell essential oils as a cure for cancer, nor should 'conversion therapy' quackery be allowed to advertise on the basis of proven inefficacy.

E is warranted because it conversion therapy is fraud, and abuse. Taking money to torture someone for fraudulent ends is to be made illegal. It is naming a new form of graft to be explicitly outlawed and so I am fine with that.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

Part of my issue is how conversion therapy is defined:

320.*101 In sections 320.*102 to 320.*106, conversion therapy means a practice, treatment or service designed to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual or gender identity to cisgender, or to repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour. For greater certainty, this definition does not include a practice, treatment or service that relates
(a) to a person’s gender transition; or
(b) to a person’s exploration of their identity or to its development.

For A-C, that's appropriate. For D and E, I think it is harmful for a person to repress their sexual orientation or gender identity, but it's also their business.

D is warranted because it is false advertising.

E is warranted because it conversion therapy is fraud, and abuse.

Both misleading advertising and fraud are already illegal and carry stiffer maximum penalties than C-8 proposes. From a legal perspective, the government doesn't seem to classify conversion therapy (or its advertisement) to constitute misleading advertisement or fraud.

I am not defending conversion therapy either in a version which seeks to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity, or which seeks to help them repress it. It's an appalling practice and it would be better if it weren't practiced. I just don't believe D and E necessarily a good way to approach the issue.