Feds bill to ban conversion therapy passed in House of Commons

The Trudeau government’s bill to ban conversion therapy has been passed in the House of Commons.

The bill passed by unanimous consent brought forward by a Conservative MP on Wednesday afternoon. The bill makes it a crime to try and change the sexuality of an LGBTQ2 youth or to advertise or profit from any of these types of services.

The Minister for Tourism, Randy Boissonnault, who once served as the Prime Minister’s LGBTQ2 advisor, got emotional as he marked the moment.

“If we go back to the press conference, and I said I dream of a day when our LGBTQ2 issues are no long political footballs,” said Boissonnault. “And we are one day closer to that future.”

Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole allowed his caucus to have a free vote on the government bill.

This marks the second time the House has approved the bill. In the last parliament more than half the conservative caucus voted against the original bill, but today was a moment of non-partisanship — even though the previous bill passed it died in the Senate when the fall election was called.

At that time, numerous Conservative MPs complained the wording of the bill was overly broad and could criminalize conversations about sexuality between children and their parents or with religious leaders.

The vote prompted a backlash, with critics charging that O’Toole had failed to live up to his more progressive rhetoric on LGBTQ issues.

Now that it has been passed in the House, it needs to be approved by the upper chamber of the Senate and given royal assent from the governor general before it becomes law.

Conversion therapy is widely discredited as a harmful practice, aimed at trying to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

With files from the Canadian Press