Thank you, Chair, for the question.
I will comment on the impact of the amendment that is before you. I do have it before me as well. What it would do is amend the definition to include “practices, treatments or services designed to change gender expression to cisgender and practices, treatments or services designed to reduce or repress non-cisgender expression.”
Doing that would expand the scope of the definition to include an additional way of showing that a particular intervention, practice, treatment or service constitutes conversion therapy, as I've just explained. This approach would assist in preventing conversion therapists from seeking to avoid criminal liability by arguing that their interventions are not designed to make a person cisgender but only to reduce or repress certain forms of expression, even though changing identities is their true objective.
I would also note that this is criminal legislation, so it has to be narrowly interpreted with reference to the legislation's overall objective, and that objective is to target interventions that are known to cause harm because they're designed to change identity, as explained in the bill's preamble.
Thank you.