Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Kitchener—Conestoga.
Pride Month starts tomorrow in my home province of Ontario, and I can think of no more opportune time to be working on the passage of Bill C-6 in the House of Commons. During Pride, LGBTQ2 Canadians celebrate who they are and their freedom to identify how they wish and love whomever they want, but there remain those who would deny the LGBTQ2 community's basic rights: those who believe that sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression can and should be changed to fit the narrow idea of what is “normal” or “natural” through the practice of conversion therapy. Bill C-6 would put an end to this.
By criminalizing the practice of conversion therapy, our government is making a statement. We are stating clearly that conversion therapy is degrading, abusive and discriminatory, and the lifelong trauma it causes must come to an end. I have heard this call from my constituents in Parkdale—High Park and from those who believe in equality and in ending stigma right around the country. On the eve of Pride 2021, I hope that all colleagues in the House can agree that a practice based on age-old myths and prejudicial stereotypes about the LGTBQ2 community has no place in Canada.
Now let me turn to the bill itself. It proposes reforms that would comprehensively protect children from the known harms of conversion therapy, and protect Canadians from commercialization of the practice and from being forced to undergo it.
These reforms were inspired by a growing movement against conversion therapy led by survivors and supported by community allies, researchers and experts, many of whom shared their knowledge and experiences with the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights as we studied the bill.
This broad body of work inspired important amendments at committee and highlighted the evidence-based findings, namely that conversion therapy is harmful to people subjected to it. Bill C-6 seeks to stop this affront to human dignity and is an integral part of our ongoing efforts to protect LGBTQ2 individuals.
As many have rightly pointed out, the origins of conversion therapy betray its discriminatory and harmful ends. I want to highlight the testimony of Jack Saddleback. When I was at the justice committee, he poignantly reminded us in his testimony of the history of conversion therapy in Canada. It is inextricably linked to the erosion of indigenous culture and understanding of gender and sexual diversity, and to the suffering of two-spirit youths in residential schools, which is something we have all been thinking about a great deal over the past several days. As we reflect on the harm this bill is intended to prevent, we cannot forget the personal intergenerational trauma endured by two-spirit individuals and the communities for whom “conversion” has often been synonymous with assimilation.
By the 1980s and 1990s, the practice of conversion therapy had become prominent in this country. Even as we adopted the charter in 1982 and strengthened our collective commitment to protecting the fundamental rights and freedoms of Canadians, the inherent dignity and quality of LGBTQ2 youths' and adults' lives continued to be threatened by interventions that vilified and pathologized their differences. These interventions sought to change who they were.
In his testimony and memoir, The Inheritance of Shame, survivor Peter Gajdics described in no uncertain terms the trauma he experienced as a gay man subjected to conversion therapy between 1989 and 1995. He recalled being virtually imprisoned in a “cult-like house” and subjected to prolonged sessions of primal scream therapy, near-lethal doses of medication and “re-parenting” sessions to heal his “broken masculinity”. When none of these methods worked, he was subjected to aversion therapy to suppress his homosexual desires. In his words, these were weapons selected to wage “a war against his sexuality”.
The names, means and methods of conversion therapy have changed over the years, often in an attempt to escape intensifying scrutiny and scientific condemnation. We heard this raised in the questions posed to the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands. However, the practice's flawed and hateful premise has persisted: that LGBTQ2 persons' sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression are disordered and must be “fixed” or “rehabilitated” in order for them to live fulfilling and worthy lives. The brief submitted to the justice committee jointly by Dr. Travis Salway and the research team at the Centre for Gender and Sexual Health Equity referenced this point.
In his report entitled, “Conversion Therapy in Canada: A Guide for Legislative Action”, Dr. Wells underscores this point. We also have evidence from the UN Independent Expert 2020 Report, which concluded that conversion practices “inflict severe pain and suffering, resulting in long-lasting psychological and physical damage [and] are inherently degrading and discriminatory. They are rooted in the belief that LGBT persons are somehow inferior and that they must at any cost modify their orientation or identity to remedy that supposed inferiority”.
The UN Independent Expert recognizes that all forms of conversion therapy are dehumanizing and harmful, regardless of whether they purport to make a person heterosexual or cisgender. The report echoes Florence Ashley's warning to Canadian legislators to “reject any attempt to separate trans conversion practices from gay conversion practices”.
As Florence Ashley notes in one of their briefs, “these practices share a history and significant overlap in their contemporary forms. Neither trans nor cisgender LGBQ can be adequately protected without fully protecting the other.”
That is precisely why the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights amended Bill C-6 in order to clarify that the bill has always sought to protect all LGBTQ2 communities.
Survivors and experts told us that the efforts to reduce and suppress the gender expression of transgender, queer and two-spirit people are part of broader interventions designed to “make” them cisgender. The amendments made to the bill's preamble and the definition of conversion therapy to include the mention of “gender expression” reflect the major concerns of all stakeholders.
In response to the experience and warnings of stakeholders with regard to the nature of conversion therapy, the Standing Committee on Justice also amended the offence regarding advertising in order to target the promotion of conversion therapy, namely the promotion of its underlying premise, which is hateful and unscientific.
The proposed offence clearly targets the discriminatory public messaging associated with the advertising of specific conversion therapy services and the promotion of conversion therapy in general.
I am very pleased that the justice committee strengthened this bill, despite many attempts by the official opposition to both delay the bill and stop it. I am particularly grateful to the survivors, advocates and allies who have come forward to inform the process. Through tireless advocacy, they have shed light on a glaring legislative gap in the protection of the inherent dignity and equality of all LGBTQ2 people. It is a gap that has allowed hateful narratives to fester and dehumanizing practices to go unchecked, and a gap that this legislation is carefully designed to fill.
Practices that negate the diversity of the human experience instead of celebrating that experience have absolutely no place in our country. Bill C-6 seeks to end such practices, including by promoting values that are fundamental to what it means to be Canadian: equality, dignity, diversity and respect for difference. Let us join together to further those values in support of Bill C-6.
