Question Period Note: CONVERSION THERAPY

The 2019 Liberal Party platform included a commitment to work with provinces and territories to end conversion therapy in Canada, including by amending the Criminal Code to prohibit the practice, especially against minors.

• Conversion therapy is a harmful practice that can lead to life-long trauma.
• While medical associations and mental health organizations have denounced the practice, ending conversion therapy in Canada requires a consistent approach across the country.
• The Government of Canada is exploring ways to achieve this important objective.

The Liberal Party of Canada’s 2019 platform included a commitment to work with provinces and territories to end conversion therapy in Canada, including by amending the Criminal Code to prohibit the practice, especially against minors.

The LGBTQ community has advocated for a ban on conversion therapy at the national level. Additionally, former Bill S-260, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conversion therapy), which was introduced by Senator Joyal on April 9, 2019, would have created two new hybrid criminal offences: advertising the provision of conversion therapy for consideration, and receiving a financial or material benefit from its provision. Former Bill S-260 died on the Order Paper at Second Reading in the Senate with dissolution of Parliament.

Conversion therapy includes talk therapy, behavioral, group therapy or milieu treatments (e.g., “retreats”) aimed at changing a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual or a person’s gender identity to cisgender (i.e., persons whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth). The therapy can include humiliating practices such as confinement and nude beatings. “Practitioners” may charge significant fees. The practice has been repudiated by major mental health organizations and medical associations because it is ineffective and causes harm to patients and their families.

Certain Criminal Code offences may apply to certain situations involving conversion therapy. For example, kidnapping (subsection 279(1)), forcible confinement (subsection 279(2)) and assault (sections 266 to 268) may apply where a person is forcibly compelled to undergo conversion therapy. However, the Criminal Code does not contain an offence that directly addresses the practice.

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