Trudeau govt introduces bill to criminalize therapy for those with unwanted LGBT identity
The bill, if passed, will make Canada's ban on so-called conversion therapy the 'most progressive and comprehensive in the world,' said a spokesman.
OTTAWA, March 9, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — The Trudeau Liberals introduced a bill Monday that will make it a crime not only to give minor Canadians help to overcome same-sex attraction or gender confusion but to “remove a minor from Canada” to seek such help.
Tabled by Justice Minister David Lametti, Bill C-8 adds five new crimes to the Criminal Code, the minister announced in a press conference Monday.
Lametti said that the bill will make it a crime to: 1) cause a minor to undergo conversion therapy, 2) remove a minor from Canada to undergo conversion therapy, 3) cause a person to undergo conversion therapy against their will, 4) profit from conversion therapy, and 5) advertise conversion therapy.
“As to minors, we are criminalizing this across the board,” Lametti said. The Liberals are also criminalizing “coerced conversion therapy” for adults and criminalizing activities around providing such therapy for adults.
“A competent adult could conceivably defend the right in court to receive this activity,” Lametti told reporters. The bill as written provides a “strong balance between progressive policies and constitutional rights.”
If Bill C-8 is passed, “Canada’s law will be the most progressive and comprehensive in the world,” he declared.
Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Youth Bardish Chagger was also at the conference, as well as alleged “survivors” of “conversion therapy,” which Lametti described as a “discredited practice” and “not based in science.”
When a reporter questioned Lametti about Charter rights to freedom of expression and religion, the justice minister said the Liberals were concerned about the “devastating effects” of “conversion therapy.”
But pro-family advocates who have been lobbying against a similar bill in the Senate, S-202, are denouncing the bill as a totalitarian law that will prevent Canadians from getting therapy they want and need.
They also blast the bill as directly targeting Christians by outlawing, among other things, praying for and spiritually counseling individuals who ask for help overcoming unwanted same-sex attraction or gender confusion.
“Any kind of clinical therapy or spiritual counseling to help a person overcome their gender identity confusion and to accept their bodily reality, including the pastoral support … will be defined as ‘conversion therapy,’ and thus, become illegal,” says Jack Fonseca, director of political operations of Campaign Life Coalition, Canada’s national pro-life, pro-family political lobbying group.
However, the difficulty with opposing a ban on so-called “conversion therapy” is that Canadians have been misled by the mainstream media and the LGBTQ lobby to such a degree that they have no idea what the term means, Fonseca told LifeSiteNews in an earlier interview.
“At this very moment, dishonest media outlets and even more dishonest LGBT activists are running around the country, lying and claiming that gays and lesbians are being electroshocked, and forcibly confined, and tortured by churches and psychotherapists who practice ‘conversion’ therapy,” he said.
“And this is a lie,” Fonseca said. “We’re talking about loving, standard talk therapy. There’s nothing forcible about it; people are going there voluntarily.”
Dr. Ann Gillies, Ontario psychotherapist and author of the 2017 book Closing the Floodgates, an analysis of propaganda promoting the sexual revolution, echoed this when warning against similar legislation, Senate Bill S-202.
“The ultimate goal is to silence the Christian church in Canada. It is to silence us from talking. It’s totally totalitarian,” said Gillies, a retired expert in counseling survivors of complex trauma, at Campaign Life event last month.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-trudeau-govt-introduces-bill-to-criminalize-therapy-for-those-with-unwanted-lgbt-identity