The Hot Topic this Week: Bill C-4 bans Conversion Therapy!

On December 8, 2021, Bill C-4 received Royal Assent (approval by the Governor General), banning conversion therapy and making it a criminal offence.

Bill C-4 defines conversion therapy as a practice, treatment or service designed to:

• Change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual;
• Change a person’s gender identity to cisgender;
• Change a person’s gender expression so that it conforms to the sex assigned to the person at birth;
• Repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour;
• Repress a person’s non-cisgender gender identity; or
• Repress or reduce a person’s gender expression that does not conform to the sex assigned to the person at birth

What a huge turn around in Canadian law when you consider that until 1969 individuals who engaged in homosexual acts were viewed as sick or immoral and feared as a danger to society. 

Based on information found in Ron Levy’s article, The 1969 Amendment and (De)criminalization of Homosexuality, published in the Canadian Encyclopedia on November 26, 2019, that up until 1869 Canadian law allowed for offenders to be sentenced to death; though convictions were usually changed to imprisonment. Other punishments included whippings and time spent in pillory; a wooden structure with holes for the head and hands, where prisoners were subject to public abuse and humiliation.

In 1890, The House of Commons introduced a new offence called “gross indecency”, becoming part of the country’s first criminal code in 1892. The wording was as follows: “Every male person is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to five years’ imprisonment and to be whipped who, in public or private, commits, or is a party to the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person. 

Ontario MP Richard Cartwright, who served in Canadian Parliament for over 43 years, agreed that this “particular crime has been on the increase in certain sections of society and can hardly be punished too severely,”. He believed the term “gross indecency” was too vague. 

David Mills, MP and former Liberal Minister of the Interior (1876-1878) also voiced his views on legislating morality in very severe terms. Despite his reservations that offences against morality were sins rather than crimes, he still believed that “flogging, or something of that sort” was in order.

In 1969, the sodomy and gross indecency laws were amended following public outrage over the conviction and sentencing of Everett George Klippert, who served almost 10 years in prison for acts of same-sex activity. The Criminal Law Amendment Act added an exemption making such acts legal under certain circumstances. The act could only be conducted in private, and individuals involved had to be consenting adults of at least 21 years of age. (In 2019, consent was changed to 16 years of age.) Finally, in 1987 the Criminal Code repealed the offence of gross indecency.

Despite the significant legal changes during the 1970’s, social attitudes that had prevailed for centuries changed very little. Homosexuality was still viewed by many as immoral, corrupt and deserving of punishment. When the law no longer provided these terms of punishment, religious organizations stepped up to offer another kind of “treatment” for homosexuality – conversion therapy. Or, in the words of some faith organizations “pray the gay away”. If only it were just prayer. The very real and very scary threat of conversion therapy is that it is sometimes done in secret, under very misleading and unregulated conditions, involving some very harmful practices. Many people have come forward to share their personal trauma from receiving conversion therapy. Some of these people were consenting adults, who had been convinced that being homosexual was a sin in God’s eyes and they needed to change to become worthy of His love. The “therapy” they thought they were signing up for turned out to be very different from what they received. 

Fast forward to December 8, 2021, when the Canadian Parliament unanimously voted in support of C-4. Conversion therapy is now banned.  Bill C-4 prohibits both adults and children from being subjected to harmful conversion therapy practices, through four new Criminal Code offences including making it a crime punishable by up to five years in prison to cause another person to undergo conversion therapy.

The bill’s sponsor, Senator Rene Cormier, stated “A major milestone just passed for the rights of LGBTQ2+ communities in this country and I am beyond proud.”

In my opinion, understanding human sexuality is ongoing and complex. Our long-held beliefs that same-sex activity is a crime, a moral sin or a mental illness is based in ignorance and fear and must be challenged! We’ve come a long way over the past 50 years, but we aren’t there yet. We need to continue to learn, understand, accept and most of all, have care and compassion for everyone – not just the ones that fit into a narrow description of what is acceptable according to religious beliefs. 

I stand up for the LGBTQ2+ community and pledge that I will not tolerate or accommodate any hate speech; (inappropriate jokes, slurs or demeaning language). It has taken Canada centuries to finally get to a place of human decency by de-criminalizing homosexuality in 1987 and now legally banning conversion therapy in 2021. 

We’ve changed the law – now we must change our beliefs and our actions. 

This is my opinion. What’s yours?

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