Moved second reading of Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conversion therapy).

He said: Honourable senators, it is an honour to rise today as the sponsor of Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conversion therapy), a bill that will reform criminal law in order to respond to the practice of conversion therapy in Canada.

This practice is discriminatory and harmful to the individuals who are subjected to it, and it is detrimental for society in general. It is based on the premise that LGBTQ2+ people can and must change in order to conform to societal norms, and it perpetuates stereotypes and myths that have no place in Canadian society.

This bill is the culmination of decades of tireless efforts by LGBTQ2+ communities and their allies. It is part of an ongoing and lengthy struggle to have their rights recognized in our country.

Esteemed colleagues, from the partial decriminalization of homosexuality in 1969 to the passage of Bill C-23 in 2000, which gave same-sex couples the same social and tax benefits as heterosexual couples in common-law relationships, the Civil Marriage Act in 2005, which made same-sex marriage legal across Canada, Bill C-16 in 2017, which added gender identity and gender expression as prohibited grounds for discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act, and Bill C-66 in 2018, a bill that I had the privilege of sponsoring in the Senate and that expunged historically unjust convictions, our country has reached important milestones in upholding the fundamental rights and dignity of all citizens.

Bill C-6 represents another important step in the recognition of human rights in Canada.

Our country proudly celebrates its diversity and strives for respect and inclusion for all people. It goes without saying that the practices we are talking about today are not at all consistent with these goals. That’s why we need to ensure that all Canadians, regardless of their age, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, are free and safe to be themselves. That is what Bill C-6 seeks to do.

Colleagues, I would like to share a few thoughts with you before I get into the substance of the bill.

A few weeks ago, when I gave a speech about the benefits of art in this chamber, I pointed out the important role that empathy plays in Canadian society and in Parliament. Empathy is the ability to identify with others, understand what they are feeling and put oneself in their place. It is an essential quality if we are to understand the impact that this so-called therapy has on people’s lives.

Honourable senators, I would ask you to stop for a moment and think about the person you love most in the world, the person you would give everything for, the person with whom you share your joy, your pain and your dreams, the person you said “yes” to one day and with whom you wanted to start a family and build a future together, the person who, in your eyes, is more precious to you than yourself and for whom you would give your own life.

Now take a moment to think about who you are, what defines you. Think about who you are deep down, the person you have spent so much time understanding, shaping and accepting. That is your core identity. It’s what makes you who you are and defines you as an individual, that inherent, unwavering sense that you are who you are, in the gender that you identify with and are known by.

Now, imagine that your parents, your friends or your community are constantly telling you, sometimes just with a look or a few words, that it’s unnatural and unacceptable for you to love the person you love. Imagine them saying that some kinds of love in this world are good and some are bad.

Imagine someone criticizing your very identity, the one you’ve spent your whole life accepting and shaping so you could have self-confidence and find ways to love, act and contribute to our society. Imagine being told that it’s shameful to believe in your identity or to “claim” to be a certain way. Imagine being told that you can change, and must, in fact, in order to fall in line with societal norms.

How would you feel, honourable senators? No doubt you would feel desperately torn between who you are and who they want you to be. You would be afraid of disappointing them, of losing your loved ones, of being rejected by your family, of not being loved anymore. You would feel trapped in a solitude too deep to escape. In short, you would no doubt be in profound distress.

One day, I met a 19-year-old man who was caught in this struggle. This young man was consumed by a profound, existential pain. He was faced with an agonizing, unspeakable choice: to accept himself for who he was, to try to change, or to end his own life.

Many Canadians experience this struggle, honourable senators. Perhaps, like some of them, if you were in this unbearable situation, you would be anxious to change. Perhaps you would agree to undergo “therapy” to miraculously take away this pain. If you were a child, perhaps your parents might steer you in that direction, out of love, thinking that you would be cured and then you would be happy again.

Unfortunately, that is the reality that many Canadians are facing. I am telling you all this today, honourable senators, because it takes a lot of effort to recognize, understand and accept a way of being that is different from our own, particularly when it comes to identity and sexuality. I am therefore appealing to your empathy today on behalf of all members of the LGBTQ2+ community and all those who survived these practices.

Since the beginning of the discussion about conversion therapy in Canada, many people have been surprised to find out they exist, while others have admitted they know very little about them. However, it does not take much research to discover the astounding number of Canadian organizations and individuals that still offer conversion therapy and promote the alleged benefits of these practices. I was appalled at what the proponents of conversion therapy said about it and how the survivors described it.

What is conversion therapy, and how does it affect those who undergo it? Conversion therapy refers to interventions that aim to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual, to change a person’s gender identity to cisgender, in other words to make the gender they identify with correspond to the gender they were assigned at birth, or to change their gender expression to match the gender they were assigned at birth.

This practice is rooted in the erroneous and discriminatory belief that any identity other than heterosexual and any diverse gender identity or expression is an anomaly that requires treatment, a disease, basically. It’s a pathologization of these realities, a view that is completely out of step with modern science.

Despite being called “conversion therapy,” these practices are therapeutic in name only. They are sometimes called “reparative therapy,” “reorientation therapy” or “change therapy.”

A 2020 report by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association entitled Curbing Deception notes that conversion therapy practices have ranged from lobotomies, castration, aversion and hormone therapy to hypnosis, internment in clinics or camps, psychotherapy and counselling. The 2020 Report on Conversion Therapy of the United Nations independent expert on violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity confirms the diversity of conversion therapy practices:

“Conversion therapy” is used as an umbrella term to describe interventions of a wide-ranging nature, all of which are premised on the belief that a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity, including gender expression, can and should be changed or suppressed when they do not fall under what other actors in a given setting and time perceive as the desirable norm, in particular when the person is lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or gender diverse. Such practices are therefore consistently aimed at effecting a change from non‑heterosexual to heterosexual and from trans or gender diverse to cisgender.

Honourable senators, other available evidence is likewise deeply alarming. For example, in 2019, a global survey undertaken by OutRight Action International indicates that 67% of all respondents reported being coerced into undergoing conversion therapy. The same survey found that 82% of those subjected to conversion therapy were under the age of 24, with 37% under the age of 18. Even more alarming is that 74% of those under the age of 18 were coerced.

Many studies have catalogued the harms experienced by people who have been subjected to conversion therapy. The 2009 systematic review of peer-reviewed literature on conversion therapy by the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation noted the range of serious harms that the evidence shows conversion therapy causes. These include decreased self-esteem, increased self-hatred, confusion, depression, guilt, helplessness, hopelessness, shame, social withdrawal, suicidality, increased substance abuse, sexual dysfunction, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and physical pain. Conversion therapy provided to youth poses an even more serious risk of harm, especially where youths are pressured to participate.

Recent research supports these findings. For example, the 2020 results of Canada’s Sex Now Survey note a similar range of negative psychosocial and health outcomes, and a recent article focused on LGBTQ teenagers notes that individuals who experience conversion therapy as youth were more likely to have experienced negative mental health outcomes. The most recent results from the survey were released this month. This data estimates that 1 in 10 men within the LGBTQ2+ community in Canada has been subjected to conversion therapy practices. To date, that’s over 50,000 people in Canada alone.

This is the reason why both Canadian and international professional associations have denounced the practice. To name a few, associations like the World Health Organization, the United Nations Committee Against Torture, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Human Rights Committee, the Canadian Psychiatric Association, the Canadian Psychological Association, l’Ordre professionnel des sexologues du Québec and the Canadian Association of Social Workers were clear about these practices.

Even though some argue that they are based on good faith, these practices have led, and will continue to lead until they are banned, to distress, suicide attempts and shattered lives. How can it be more important to try to change the very foundations of a person than to help that person accept who they truly are, while ensuring the protection of their psychological health and even their life?

Canada is an inclusive country whose Charter and laws recognize everyone’s right to equality.

Shortly after I came to the Senate, we studied and passed Bill C-16, which added gender identity and gender expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code. Together, we recognized the immutable and intrinsic nature of human gender identity and gender expression.

It’s not a matter of choice because, much like sexual orientation, these aspects of our being are not a matter of choice. They are simply who we are.

That’s why nobody can say a person chooses to be homosexual or trans or that they can change that reality. The only choice a person can make is to express who they are, either publicly or not. For some, that choice is still unavailable, unfortunately. Carl Nassib of the Las Vegas Raiders, the American football player who recently came out of the closet, is a prime example.

With Bill C-6, the government is responding to these alarming statistics by proposing five new offences to criminalize the following actions: causing a child under the age of 18 to undergo conversion therapy; removing a child under the age of 18 from Canada with the intention that the child undergo conversion therapy; causing an adult to undergo conversion therapy without their consent; receiving a material benefit derived directly or indirectly from the provision of conversion therapy; and promoting or advertising an offer to provide conversion therapy.

For each one of these new offences, we need to come back to the very definition of conversion therapy as set out in the bill.

The bill would define the practice in a way that is consistent with the evidence I have just reviewed. The bill’s definition specifies that conversion therapy means a practice, treatment or service that is designed to make a person heterosexual or cisgender, including by seeking to repress or reduce non-heterosexual sexual behaviour or non-cisgender gender expression. By using the terms “practice,” “treatment” and “service,” the bill refers to any formalized intervention, regardless of its form, that constitutes conversion therapy if it seeks to change who a person is.

It is important to remember, honourable senators, that the intervention must be aimed at changing the person. A conversation about these issues that doesn’t have the goal of changing the person would not meet the criteria of the definitions that constitute conversion therapy, unless it is part of a systematic effort to make the person heterosexual or cisgender. Moreover, the definition is complemented by a “for greater certainty” clause, which clarifies what conversion therapy is not. Specifically, conversion therapy is not an intervention that seeks to help a person develop or explore an integrated personal identity without favouring any sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

We know from mental health professionals that identity is multifaceted. I will let them further explain the concept of integrated personal identity, but it is my understanding, honourable senators, that an integrated personal identity implies achieving some form of internal coherence regarding the multiple aspects of our social identities, for example, age, sex, gender identity, gender expression, race, culture and religion. Therefore, legitimate interventions that assist people in integrating the different aspects of themselves, but do not dictate a particular outcome, are not considered conversion therapy.

Through an amendment made in the other place, this clause now uses language that has meaning in the mental health professional context to clarify that interventions that are deemed to be legitimate by that profession are not caught by the definition. This addresses the concern that the definition may unintentionally capture legitimate therapies.

The bill’s definition has been informed by the concerns that have been voiced to date. It clarifies that conversion therapy can take many forms and may include interventions designed to repress or reduce a range of behaviours, including nonconforming gender expression. The definition “gender expression” was not mentioned in the original version of the bill as tabled. The addition of “gender expression” through an amendment in the other place allowed the bill to reflect its initial intent to protect all members of the LGBTQ2+ community.

It is clear to me, colleagues, that this bill corresponds to the harm caused to those impacted by conversion therapy, as reflected by the evidence.

With two offences concerning conversion therapies on children, the bill fully protects them, who we know are disproportionately affected by conversion therapy, both in terms of the frequency with which they have been subjected to these practices and the harms that they have experienced as a result.

The bill also protects everyone from being coerced into undergoing conversion therapy, which international data shows occurs with alarming frequency. However, because the bill is a balanced response, it also allows some room for adults to freely decide to follow conversion therapy.

By creating new offences for profiting from such practices and advertising or promoting them, Bill C-6 seeks to protect all Canadians from conversion therapy’s harms by reducing its availability and its discriminatory messaging in the public sphere.

Esteemed colleagues, our shared awareness of these discriminatory practices is the result of tireless work on the part of members of LGBTQ2+ communities and their allies to defend and promote their rights.

In recent years, they have risen up across the country to bring about this change. They have opened the eyes of many to the existence of these practices in Canada. Their activism prompted Canadian municipalities such as Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Saskatoon to answer the call. Many municipalities used their authority in this area to adopt bylaws prohibiting the business practice of conversion therapy within their borders. Others have passed motions or declarations denouncing conversion therapy.

In addition, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Yukon have passed laws stating that conversion therapy is not an insured health service and prohibiting health professionals from providing minors with services intended to change their sexual orientation or identity. Manitoba, for its part, adopted a policy prohibiting these practices.

By eradicating these practices in Canada, we will be fulfilling our collective responsibility toward all the people who have been or will be subjected to them, but also toward the entire Canadian population, which is being exposed to these discriminatory messages and stereotypes. Every regulation and every law is essential to achieving a society free from the practice of conversion therapy. Through amendments to the Criminal Code, Bill C-6 adds to these decisive actions. It’s thanks to survivors like Matt, Erika and Victor, and to the work of many experts and activists, that we are here today. Their moving and courageous testimony demonstrates the need for action.

Every year, every month and every week that goes by, more tears are shed and more lives are destroyed for no other reason than because people wanted to be themselves. Yet isn’t it one of the worst things in life to deny the very essence of our being? Also, having failed to act sooner in our history, we now have the chance to intervene immediately and collectively to protect all of the members, both young and not so young, of LGBTQ2+ communities.

Honourable senators, before I conclude, I would be remiss if I didn’t thank our former colleague, the Honourable Serge Joyal, who sparked the conversation on this issue in this place two years ago. If not for his work and determination, we probably wouldn’t be studying Bill-6 today.

I can say quite confidently that it is high time to put an end to the harmful and discriminatory practice of conversion therapy. I hope that we can all agree that Bill C-6 represents a balanced response to a glaring gap in the law, and it is more urgent than ever to refer the bill to a committee for in-depth study.

Colleagues, this bill is not being introduced to oppose anyone or any particular belief. Quite the opposite. It does not seek to pass judgment on the religious beliefs of individuals. It does not seek to prevent parents who care about the health and happiness of their children from having conversations with them. Rather, it is a further step toward the full recognition of the human dignity, integrity and equality of every individual.

After more than two years of contemplating and studying this issue, as I think of the 50,000 Canadians who have been subjected to conversion therapy, I can say that I look forward to Bill C-6 being studied and passed as quickly as possible.

In closing, allow me to give you an update on the 19-year-old man I spoke about at the beginning of my speech, the one who was facing an agonizing decision: to accept his sexual orientation, to try to change, or to end his life. Well, thanks to his parents, his family, his community and the friends who supported him, he did not have to make that impossible choice. Fortunately, he was not forced to undergo so-called conversion therapy. He finally managed to accept himself, live his life, find love and contribute to society as best he could. That young man, who was 19 years old in 1975, is standing before you today, and he is incredibly grateful for the support he received.

Honourable senators, as legislators, with the fifty-second anniversary of the Stonewall riots just a few days away, let’s pass Bill C-6 so that every single person facing that same agonizing choice gets to be themselves and isn’t forced into a situation that would have disastrous consequences for them. Let’s continue to work together to make sure that instead, they’re supported and loved for who they are, human beings who are only asking to live, love and be happy.

Thank you for your attention.

Honourable senators, I’m honoured to speak to you today from the unceded territories of the Mi’kmaq people.

Colleagues, June is Pride Month in Canada. It is a time when we celebrate LGBTQ+ people, acknowledge their history, the hardships they have endured and many still endure, the progress and triumphs they have achieved and the many contributions they make to our society, our communities, our families and, colleagues, to our Parliament.

The June 15 report issued by Statistics Canada for Pride Month indicates that Canada is now home to 1 million people who identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community, accounting for 4% of the Canadian population.

Colleagues, I rise today to add my voice in support of Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conversion therapy) because it is time we demonstrate our respect for the rights of LGBTQ+ Canadians and acknowledge our responsibility to respond to their plea to stop the harm conversion therapy has caused and is still causing to them. Pride Month would have been a fitting time to pass this long-overdue bill.

I would like to commend my colleague Senator René Cormier on his leadership in sponsoring both this important bill and the previous Bill S-202, initiated by our former colleague Senator Serge Joyal.

Senator Cormier, you’re right. It’s high time that Canadians stood up for human rights and demanded justice and compassion.

Change does not always come quickly but change is necessary when we look at the kind of Canada we want for all of us, in particular for our children and grandchildren. In 1971, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau said:

There is no such thing as a model or ideal Canadian. What could be more absurd than the concept of an “all-Canadian” boy or girl? A society which emphasizes uniformity is one which creates intolerance and hate. A society which eulogizes the average citizen is one which breeds mediocrity. What the world should be seeking, and what in Canada we must continue to cherish, are not concepts of uniformity but human values: compassion, love and understanding.

Colleagues, it is time to stop othering people who do not conform to some artificial concept of what is “normal.” It is time to stop fearing difference in others. It is time now, more than ever, to embrace diversity.

For decades, members of the LGBTQ+ community have faced systemic oppression and violence. They’ve been told that they are immoral and that they are sick. They have been made to feel like outcasts in their communities, in their congregations, in their workplaces, in their schools and, sadly, sometimes even in their own families.

For much of our past, the government has been complicit in this disenfranchisement by criminally charging Canadians with sodomy, banning homosexuals from entering the country and barring LGBTQ+ people from serving in the Canadian military. The list goes on.

In doing so, the government sent a clear message that anyone who was not heterosexual and/or cisgender did not belong in Canadian society and would not receive the same rights, freedoms and protections as their so-called “normal” counterparts. This is the atmosphere in which conversion therapy came to be. Since the 1950s in Canada, it has been touted as a cure for an entire group of people who were already made to feel like outcasts. A cure for what, I ask? A cure for not conforming to society’s heteronormative expectations or, quite simply, a cure for who they are?

Let’s be clear, colleagues: conversion therapy is “. . . akin to torture . . .” as Randy Boissonnault, the former Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on LGBTQ+ issues, has stated. And, as much of it is inflicted on children, colleagues, conversion therapy is, quite frankly, a severe form of child abuse. It has taken on many forms and has been offered by clinical professionals, by religious officials, by community leaders and by many charlatans.

In the Canadian Mental Health Association of New Brunswick’s position paper on conversion therapy in Canada, it is stated:

“Conversion therapy” dates to the late 19th century, when the German psychiatrist Albert von Schrenk-Notzing claimed he’d turned a gay man straight through hypnosis sessions and several trips to a brothel. The practice accelerated through the 20th century even as the techniques remained crude and often barbaric. Historian Chris Babits, for instance, has found evidence of the widespread use of ice pick lobotomies performed on homosexual children in the 1940s and 1950s. Other techniques involved forced castration of homosexual men and electroconvulsive therapy.

Honestly, I just shudder when I think of the cruelty and pain inflicted on innocent people, in particular children and youth.

George Barasa, a gay gender-nonconforming Kenyan living in South Africa and a survivor of conversion therapy, said the following:

Conversion therapy is not a single event — it is a process of continued degradation and assault on the core of who you are. There are often repeated violations in the form of psychological and sometimes physical abuse. . . It is not one instance — it is a continued sense of rejection. The pressure is enormous.

David Kinitz, a PhD student at the University of Toronto, wrote:

I am a survivor of conversion therapy and I know first-hand how harmful it is. At 16, I decided to self-enrol in conversion therapy out of a desire to be “straight” and act in more masculine ways. My formative years were filled with invalidating experiences and heteronormative pressures that led me to the point of thinking that being queer was something that was incompatible with living in our society, forcing me to want to consider changing, or worse, take my own life.

Erika Muse, who provided testimony on Bill C-6 to the House Committee on Justice and Human Rights said:

. . . I am a survivor of trans conversion therapy. . . . at the now-closed youth gender clinic at the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health, CAMH, in Toronto, with Kenneth Zucker.

Dr. Zucker saw me as a patient for seven years, from the ages of 16 to 23, and denied me trans-affirming health care in the form of both hormones and surgery until I was 22. Dr. Zucker . . . . interrogated me in talk therapy for hours at a time, inquisitorially attacking, damaging and attempting to destroy my identity and my self-esteem, and to make me ashamed and hateful of myself.

Conversion therapy almost broke me and I live with its physical and emotional scars to this day . . . .

Colleagues, there are many different methods used in conversion therapy — many now online — from talk therapy, spiritual interventions and prescribing medication, to more extreme forms. Conversion therapy goes by many different names, including reparative therapy, reintegrative therapy, reorientation therapy, ex-gay therapy, gay cure and sexual orientation and gender identity and expression change efforts, each with the same goal of changing a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual or gender identity to cisgender.

Colleagues, there are no credible scientific studies that can demonstrate an association between conversion therapy and an influence on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. The Canadian Psychological Association has stated that conversion therapy can:

. . . result in negative outcomes such as distress, anxiety, depression, negative self-image, a feeling of personal failure, difficulty sustaining relationships . . . self-harm, suicide ideation, sexual dysfunction as well as guilt, helplessness, hopelessness, shame, social withdrawal, substance use, stress, disappointment, self-blame, decreased self esteem, increased self hatred, hostility and blame towards authority, anger, loss of friends, high risk sexual behaviours and a loss of faith.

In 2012, the Pan American Health Organization stated that conversion therapy poses, “. . . a severe threat to the health and human rights of the affected persons.”

The results of the 2019-20 Sex Now survey found that 10% of respondents had been exposed to some form of conversion therapy in Canada and that 72% of those started conversion therapy before the age of 20. Among respondents exposed to conversion therapy, transgender, Indigenous, racial minorities and low-income persons were found to be disproportionately represented.

As Minister Lametti noted in the other place:

This data is significant cause for concern. Not only does conversion therapy negatively affect marginalized persons, but it negatively affects the most marginalized within that group.

The Yukon, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Prince Edward Island and my own province of Nova Scotia have put in place laws that restrict conversion therapy.

Bill C-6 was drafted to protect all Canadian minors from undergoing conversion therapy either in Canada or abroad. It does this by providing a clear definition of conversion therapy, which you have heard, and by creating five new Criminal Code offences. To remind you, these are: causing a minor to undergo conversion therapy; removing a minor from Canada to undergo conversion therapy abroad; causing a person to undergo conversion therapy against their will; profiting from conversion therapy; and finally, advertising an offer to provide conversion therapy.

Bill C-6 represents an important step forward in LGBTQ+ rights and sends a clear message to LGBTQ+ youth that no one should be forced to deny who they are.

Still, colleagues, Bill C-6 answers only one section of a much larger portfolio of issues that need to be tackled in terms of LGBTQ+ rights in Canada. It has been 36 years since the Parliamentary Subcommittee on Equality Rights released its report entitled Equality for All, highlighting the physical and psychological oppression of sexual minorities in Canada. We must continue the progress we have already made and strive to do better in the areas that still require work.

The past several years have brought some positive change for LGBTQ+ people around the world. In January 2020, same-sex marriage legislation took effect in Northern Ireland. In May last year, Germany banned conversion therapy for minors. Last July, Mexico City banned conversion therapy and Sudan removed the death penalty for homosexuality.

Yet, there are still over 70 countries in the world where being LGBTQ+ is a crime. Colleagues, I’m horrified to say that there are still six countries in which it is punishable by death. In nearly 30 countries, the practice of conversion therapy is still supported by the state through private health clinics and schools that provide this “service.”

Colleagues, Bill C-6 seeks to ensure that the dangerous and damaging practice of conversion therapy is banned everywhere in Canada and that our children and grandchildren grow up in a world where it is not only safer to be open about who we are but where our differences are celebrated and embraced.

There is momentum for change both in Canada and around the world, and we must not let up on this important human rights work. As senators, it is our duty to represent the interests and protect the rights of all minorities in our country, and in particular, the most vulnerable.

Colleagues, I support this bill because I believe it is the right thing to do. Our fellow Canadians, and children in particular, must be allowed to be who they truly are, to love whomever they want and to live without fear.

Honourable senators, as I move toward concluding my remarks, I would like to quote Jonathan Brower, a theatre artist and conversion therapy survivor. Jonathan said:

I don’t want healing any more, not from who I am. I just want healing from the scars from trying to change.

Finally, colleagues, I thought it was appropriate to quote human rights crusader Martin Luther King Jr., who said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Honourable senators, let’s move this critical bill forward and continue to bend that arc toward justice for Jonathan, Erika and David and all LGBTQ+ Canadians. Happy Pride Month, my fellow senators. Thank you, wela’lioq.

Honourable senators, I wish to speak to you today about Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conversion therapy). If you will allow me, I need to begin, as I so often do, with a story.

Two and a half years ago, when I was named to the Senate, I received a phone call from our Usher of the Black Rod, Greg Peters, to discuss preparations for my swearing in. Would I like to be sworn in on a bible? When I told him I was not a religious person, he suggested I affirm my oath while holding a copy of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The symbolism seemed perfect. An expression of my commitment as a senator to uphold the rights and freedoms of all Canadians. But a bare scroll, the Black Rod said, might look a bit plain. He suggested the scroll be tied up with a ribbon symbolizing a cause close to my heart. Perhaps a rainbow ribbon?

Well, I had written many news stories about the hard-won battles for gay rights in this country and in my province. I covered the Delwin Vriend case, when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Alberta must include sexual orientation in its provincial Human Rights Act.

I’d written about the fights waged by same-sex couples to foster children or receive inheritances. I had covered the fight for gay marriage, from the time when it seemed a radical, subversive idea, to the point where it became humdrum. I covered Edmonton’s first lesbian wedding, with a front row seat, since one of the brides happened to be my own sister-in-law. After the wedding, I guess you’d say both brides were my sisters-in-law.

I wrote about young Albertans fighting to start gay-straight alliances in their schools. I wrote about the fights over funding for life-altering surgery for trans Albertans.

But I’m not gay myself. So, I was worried about the appearance of appropriating a powerful symbol of the fight for queer and trans rights when that fight was not my own.

I canvassed my gay and lesbian friends and relations. Would they feel offended if I wrapped my Charter with a rainbow ribbon? They all told me they’d see the ribbon as a compliment to them and a signal that I would continue to fight for their rights.

Only one person questioned my choice, but she happened to be the one whose opinion mattered most because she is the person I love and respect most in the world, my daughter.

“You’re not a lesbian,” she said. “You’re just lesbian adjacent.”

She had reason for skepticism and for questioning my sincerity because for all my vaunted allyship, when my own daughter came out to me four years ago I didn’t respond like a perfect mother. I certainly didn’t respond like the “woke” social justice warrior I fancied myself to be.

I didn’t disown my daughter. I could no more cut her out of my life than I could cut my heart from my body. I didn’t reject her. But I refused to hear her.

“Of course you’re not gay,” I scoffed. “You have a membership at Sephora. You have a closet full of dresses. You wear high heels.” I simply couldn’t accept that my graceful princess, my angel, was a lesbian.

Instead of welcoming her brave announcement with joy and excitement, I tried to brush it off. “It’s just a phase,” I said. “Once you meet the right boy, you’ll forget all about this.” Then I said a few more unpardonably stupid things, straight from the hurtful hetero cliché handbook. “Maybe you’re just bisexual. Maybe you just think you’re gay because you have cool gay friends. Was it something I did wrong as a mother? Is it my fault?”

Why am I sharing this deeply personal story about my greatest parenting failure and perhaps my greatest moral failure? It’s because I want all the parents who’ve been writing to me, who’ve been filling my inbox with angry, frightened letters about Bill C-6, to understand that I am not lecturing them from some self-righteous posture of moral superiority.

I want them and you to know that I understand that fear and pain. I understand how the world tilts when your child comes to you with news that you aren’t ready to hear. Even the most loving parents can feel blindsided when their child tells them that they’re gay, lesbian or trans. I understand that denial because I felt it myself, despite all my public advocacy, all my parade-going, all my professions of allyship.

I’d been one of Edmonton’s most outspoken advocates for queer equality. But as my own daughter stood in pain before me, I realized — with scalding clarity — that as much as I loved my gay friends and family, as hard as I’d fought for them, I’d done so not just out of a sense of justice but out of pity. I had, at a deep, unacknowledged and embarrassing level, been thinking of homosexuality or transsexuality as a kind of affliction.

I’d fought for gay and trans-rights — and not just performatively or hypocritically, at least I hope not — but deep down, I didn’t want my perfect daughter — the light of my life — to be one of “them.” I didn’t want her to be a victim of society’s prejudice or bigotry.

I suddenly recalled the time the orthodontist told us that my daughter needed braces and an appliance to correct her bite. I was so upset. My daughter? My daughter was perfect and beautiful. She wasn’t like one of those kids with crooked teeth. How could she possibly need braces? Were her orthodontic issues somehow my fault?

It dawned on me that I was responding to my daughter’s news about her sexuality in exactly the same way, as though it somehow reflected badly upon my parenting. I had taken this most intimate announcement about her and her truth and somehow made it all about me.

But my daughter did not need to have her sexuality corrected or converted. We’d straightened her bite with braces and appliances. But there were no tools or tactics to straighten her. Nor did there need to be.

Her sexuality isn’t something for me to accept or tolerate. It’s something to celebrate and embrace, because it’s part of what makes her the loving, creative, thoughtful person she is. It’s part of what makes her a fine writer and part of what inspires her as a law student to fight for justice.

When I think about her wonderful squad of friends who are queer or trans, or bi, or gender non-conforming, or gender fluid — when I think about Basil and Manny and Leo and Sasha and Geena and Kaili and Blue — I feel so grateful for all they’ve taught me, and so grateful to them for always having my daughter’s back even when I didn’t.

In the end, my generous, sardonic daughter gave me her blessing to tie up my Charter scroll with a rainbow ribbon, not so much because I’d earned the right to call myself an ally, but more because that ribbon was a reminder to me of how much more work I needed to do. Just as God gave Noah a rainbow as a sign of his covenant, that rainbow ribbon marked a covenant between my daughter and me — a symbol of the vow I took that day to protect the Charter rights of all Canadians.

Let me today speak clearly. Conversion therapy is an abusive, medically discredited practice, even when families who force their children into it do so out of what they feel is love.

We need to pass this bill at the earliest opportunity. We need to criminalize this dangerous junk-science quackery that puts the physical and mental health of vulnerable people at risk. We need to send a clear message to all Canadian parents and their children that gender and sexual identities are not sicknesses to be cured, but part of the glorious human diversity that makes our country and our world a better place.

Conversion therapy is a euphemism that occludes ugly truths. There is nothing therapeutic about such coercive re-education. Therapy is defined by the Oxford dictionary as “treatment intended to relieve or heal a disorder.”

But these so-called treatments do nothing to relieve or heal. They instead corrode and undermine a gay or trans person’s very sense of identity and teach them to believe they are damaged or deluded, sick or sinful.

Many of those who’ve written to us about this bill, or who called me, have insisted they’re not homophobic or transphobic, but that they’re worried the bill infringes on religious freedom or freedom of speech. My friends, nothing in this bill infringes on the free speech rights of clergy in the pulpit or parents in the kitchen. Nothing prevents them from teaching or preaching that homosexuality is a sin. And nothing in this bill, frankly, prevents parents from rejecting or denouncing their own children.

Bill C-6 instead is narrow and specific. It protects vulnerable adults from being forced into sadistic brainwashing. It protects children from being damaged by psychological manipulations that may erode their sense of self — and it protects them from being taken abroad to undergo abusive pseudo-therapies in other countries.

The bill does not prevent children, teens or adults from getting counselling, secular or religious, if they are questioning or confused or upset about their sexuality or gender identity. Nor does Bill C-6 somehow enable children who feel they may be trans to immediately access hormone therapy or gender confirmation surgery willy-nilly. And despite what some people seem to believe, the bill does not make it a crime to deny someone top surgery or testosterone, either.

Instead, Bill C-6 criminalizes coercive and commercial efforts to make people conform, to erase their identity against their will, to poison them with self-loathing.

Specifically, Bill C-6 makes it a crime to advertise so-called conversion therapy to would-be customers. It makes it a crime to make money by selling such bogus unsafe treatments, from aversion therapy to hypnotism to exorcism. That’s important because the bill would make it illegal for people who practise this fraudulent “therapy” from passing themselves off as legitimate psychologists or counsellors.

Yes, there is a risk that Bill C-6 may simply drive this damaging practice underground. We cannot exorcise homophobia or transphobia anymore than a quack therapist can exorcise homosexuality. But we can send a message when we denounce the commercialization and monetization of homophobia and those who make money by preying on the fears and vulnerabilities of queer Canadians and their families. And we can send a message to every gay, lesbian, bisexual, two-spirited, trans, queer, asexual, gender-fluid, gender-non-binary or gender-nonconforming person that they are not afflicted but gifted.

Today, I want to publicly apologize to the queerly wonderful members of my own family for my imperfect efforts to be the ally you needed. To Paul and Brian, to Tina and Sandra, to Taylor and Laura, to Peter and Kristy and Lisa and Julie and Jason — I love you all so much. Thank you for being such wonderful aunts and uncles when my daughter needed you as role models and mentors, and when I did, too.

To my daughter’s entire posse comitatus — all her amazing friends — thank you for your brilliance and your courage.

And to my daughter, you are my inspiration every day. Thank you for your permission to tell your story, and thank you for holding me accountable always. The greatest joy and privilege of my life has been to be your mum. With you as my daughter, every month is Pride Month.

Thank you. Hiy hiy.

Honourable senators, as an independent senator from Manitoba, from Treaty 1 territory and the homeland of the Métis Nation, I rise today to support Bill C-6, which makes it illegal for anyone to force or encourage a minor to undergo conversion therapy through new offences limited to practices, services or treatment, and excluding private discussions between an individual struggling with their sexual orientation or gender identity and those seeking to support that individual.

I add my appreciation to Senators Joyal and Cormier for their leadership in bringing this issue before us more than once and thank Minister David Lametti for introducing the version of the bill we are debating today.

Honourable senators, I will not take up your time by repeating the powerful points already made by previous speakers today. I will be brief in speaking personally in support of this bill because it is an important addition to legislation in Ontario, Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and the bills introduced in the Yukon, Quebec, New Brunswick, and the municipal bylaws in Vancouver and Calgary, as well as the law in the country of Malta. The proposed offences would be limited to practices, services or treatment and therefore would exclude purely private discussions. They would also not include services relating to an individual’s gender transition or an individual’s exploration of their identity or its development when this process is voluntary.

The offences in this bill would criminalize providing conversion therapy to all children and to any adults against their will. This bill would also criminalize providing conversion therapy in exchange for any material benefit. Thus, these offences have been carefully tailored to meet the objectives of this bill.

New section 320.103 of the code makes it an offence to cause a person who is under the age of 18 years to undergo conversion therapy. In other words, under this act, a child cannot consent to receiving conversion therapy nor can a parent or guardian consent on their behalf.

This bill is an example of how the Criminal Code can be used appropriately in setting legal standards of acceptable conduct in our society.

Dear colleagues, I am the proud mother of a non-binary queer person who, as a child, was secretly taken to gender conversion sessions until I found out. This is a brilliant, strong, compassionate person who brings huge light to our world. To this day, more than 30 years later, they remember that terrible time even though they have not only survived, but they thrive and share the power of love every day, in so many ways, with so many people.

I am also a proud auntie, adopted by a trans man who came to Canada as a refugee fleeing from attempted honour killings for being who he truly is.

In this Pride Month, let us move forward together to strengthen our democracy, our families and our communities through practising love and inclusion. That is what this bill is about. Love is love, dear colleagues, and this bill will be an act of love. Thank you. Meegwetch.