The Federal Liberals are wasting no time in advancing their anti-family, anti-parental rights agenda.

On Monday, November 29, 2021 Federal Justice Minister David Lametti introduced Bill C-4, the revamped “Conversion Therapy” ban bill. 

History of Liberal Campaign to Ban Conversion Therapy

The new Bill C-4 is the replacement of the “old” C-6 which was on its way to becoming law, only to die before the Senate at Justin Trudeau’s calling of the election in August, 2021.

In 2020, it went by the name C-8, but expired when Justin Trudeau chose to prorogue Parliament.

Like C-6, the new Trudeau government bill defines “Conversion Therapy” as counselling that seeks to change a person's sexual orientation to heterosexual or gender identity to one that conforms to the “sex assigned at birth”.

Whereas its predecessor made it a criminal offence to force an adult to undergo therapy that does not affirm gender transition or homosexual orientation, Bill C-4 bans it for everyone.

This new bill, just like C-6, will promote gender transitioning for minors by preventing any therapy that doesn’t gladly affirm a lifetime of medical interventions that many transitioners come to regret!

Bill C-6 passed in the House of Commons by a vote of 263-63, and then passed first and second reading in the Senate before dying in the Senate.

On November 29 it was introduced as Bill C-4, and two days later the Conservatives brought forth a surprise motion to unanimously pass it directly to the Senate, bypassing any debate or committee review in Commons.

Even though over 60 CPC MPs voted against C-6 when it passed through Parliament last June, and nearly all of them were returned in September’s election, not one of these could find it in their hearts to speak out against this motion by their own party on Wednesday.

Official Opposition? Not so much. Democratic process? Whatever.

C-4 was introduced in the Senate on Dec. 2.

Who Should Be Concerned About Bill C-4?

Simply, we should ALL be extremely concerned about this bill.

C-4 will ban any “practice, treatment or service” (s. 320.‍101) designed to help people manage their gender dysphoria or same-sex attraction with counselling. These practices include: psychotherapy, reparative therapy, group counselling, 12-step programs, religious counselling, preaching and prayer.

It is a threat to medical professionals, religious leaders, parents, children, LGBTQ individuals and organizations that assist people with living with gender dysphoria and unwanted same-sex attraction.

A parent who arranged for counselling for their child, as well as the doctors and counsellors who offered it, could be punished with a FIVE-YEAR prison term.

This means that parents have no other choice than to start their gender dysphoric children down a path toward puberty-blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender-transition surgery.

PAFE is concerned that private conversations between parents and children that wouldn’t lead to their child becoming transgender or acting on his or her same-sex attraction could be penalized.

Religious leaders or counsellors that affirm traditional views of sexuality and gender may be sanctioned with a two-year prison term for “promoting or advertising” conversion therapy.

Advocates for Bill C-4 say it is necessary to prevent violence against LGBTQ individuals, but the Criminal Code already outlaws harassment, abuse, and assault.

In fact this bill would take away an LGBTQ individual’s right to choose appropriate health care and counselling for themselves.  Anyone who wanted to “desist” from a prior gender transition – and there are many – would be prevented from doing so.  The bill would mandate one type of “conversion” but not the reverse – it is truly a one-way street!

All this when up to 80% of children resolve feelings of gender dysphoria, according to the American Psychiatric Association. Detrans Canada told the House of Commons in their brief on C-6 that de-transitioners commonly reject their new gender identity when they find that their original mental health issues are not solved by transitioning.

Bill C-4 Launches Gender Dysphoric Children Down a Path of Medical Abuse

C-4 continues the “conversion therapy ban” bill tradition of instituting egregious overreach into the private lives of Canadians, while maintaining an apparently thorough ignorance of the troublingly explosive trend of transgender identification, particularly among young women.

This trend demands further investigation and discussion, not the outlawing and criminalization of that discussion that C-4 will bring, nor the banishment of the democratic process in rushing C-4 through the House.

The bill restricts any counselling for gender dysphoric individuals except that which affirms a person in their chosen gender. Any counsellor who proposes to explore underlying mental-health issues instead – known as watchful waiting – risks being accused of conversion therapy. According to the brief submitted to the House of Commons on Bill C-6 by Detrans Canada, the majority of people seeking to transition experience mental-health co-morbidities such as internalized homophobia, bullying, sexual violence, body dysmorphia, PTSD, OCD, eating disorders, depression, autism, anxiety, and more.

Many will regret the loss of their fertility due to surgery or the puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. The latter have terrible side-effects including reduced bone density, and the reduction or elimination of sexual function. Transgender Trend recently posted a video showing the injurious effects of puberty blockers on Swedish children. One of the interviewees, Leo, complained that he hasn’t grown, has osteopenia and spinal fractures and is in constant pain.

Swedish child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Christopher Gillberg said in 2019 he thinks that offering unproven gender affirmation therapies may be "possibly one of the greatest scandals in medical history” (Doctors back inquiry on kids' trans care, The Australian, Sep 25, 2019).

High profile cases throughout the world are already demonstrating the tragic outcomes this will cause.

The National Post recently quoted a mother of a young Ontario woman who has lived through the horror of seeing her daughter transition with the aid of drugs and surgery, only later to change her mind and “de-transition”, on the dangers of over-correcting for perceived past injustices: 

“For years and years, people have been homophobic, transphobic. We’re now trying to correct that, but by doing that we’re putting others at risk. And those others we’re putting at risk are children.”

The model of treatment for young people experiencing gender dysphoria promoted by legislation like Bill C-4 and Ontario’s Bill 17, the Gender Affirming Health Care Advisory Committee Act, 2021, which was introduced by an NDP MPP and is receiving no opposition from Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative Government, has already resulted in tragic missteps.

Michelle Zacchigna was among the first in Ontario treated under that model, only to be subsequently diagnosed with autism, anxiety disorder, ADHD and depression AFTER she had medically transitioned.

Experiencing deep regrets, the 33-year-old has now de-transitioned, although she is unable to have children.

The Justin Trudeau Liberals, and now the Erin O’Toole Conservatives who just joined them in ditching democratic tradition to expedite C-4 through Parliament, pride themselves on being “progressive” and ahead of the curve on social issues, especially the issue of transgenderism.

In fact, they are lagging far behind.

Many European jurisdictions, who pioneered the “affirmation only” path when it came to treating gender dysphoria, are now putting the brakes on those policies. 

They’re also asking pertinent questions regarding why so many young women have been prescribed powerful, puberty-blocking drugs that have altered their lives, often to their profound regret.

As Aaron Kimberly, a B.C.-based transgender man and registered nurse, observes in the same National Post article:

            “Alarms are being sounded all over the world. And Canada seems completely deaf to it.”

Sweden has ended the prescription of hormones and puberty blockers for minors. Finland is encouraging that the front-line treatment for gender dysphoria should be psychotherapy, and Australia-New Zealand has said it is essential.

You can read the entire Bill C-4 by clicking here.

ACTION ITEMS

Bill C-4 becoming law will place thousands of Canadian children in grave danger of having their futures sacrificed on the altar of a radical gender ideology that pitilessly devours lives. 

Since Canadian political culture has become so captivated by cultural leftism that neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives are interested even in discussing a bill that shreds the autonomy of Canadian parents and criminalizes private conversations, we must appeal to the political body to whom they have passed it: the Canadian Senate.

1. It’s urgent that we inform Senators that C-4 has broad opposition from parents, a growing body of de-transitioners, LGBT groups who argue that the bill discriminates against gay people who want counselling to reinforce their gay identity rather than proceed to a gender transition, religious groups, and concerned medical professionals.

Please urge them first to stop this same “fast track” disaster from happening in the Red Chamber, and secondly to raise important objections to C-4, because it:

• Will force children toward a therapeutic pathway of affirmative medicine that holds significant medical risks, including permanent sterility
  
  
• Deprives parents of psychotherapeutic options for their gender dysphoric children that are considered gold standard in other jurisdictions such as Australia-New Zealand, Finland, and Sweden
  
  
• Threatens parents’ rights to direct the health care of their children
  
  
• Restricts the freedom of expression of medical professionals and religious leaders

If you need more help explaining what’s wrong with Bill C-4, you can consult our website or our brief on C-6.

2. Find Senator contact information here.

3. Please let us know that you have contacted your Senators by emailing [email protected]. 

4. Spread the word on social media by hitting the green SHARE button posted below the thumbnail on the story "Urgent! We Must Appeal to the Senate to Take a Sober, Second Look at C-4, the Latest "Conversion Therapy Ban" Bill" on our blog.