The Liberal government’s bill to ban conversion therapy is on its way to the Senate after being fast-tracked through the House of Commons.
A motion by Fundy Royal Conservative MP Rob Moore of New Brunswick to pass Bill C-4 through all stages without amendment was unanimously adopted Wednesday.
Applause erupted in the Commons after the vote and several Liberal MPs crossed the floor to shake hands with their Conservative counterparts.
Justice Minister David Lametti thanked those in the Conservative caucus who “exercised a great deal of leadership on the issue” to make this happen.
“This is what we can accomplish when Parliament works together,” Lametti told reporters after Wednesday’s vote.
“If we can now work hard to get this through the Senate quickly, less Canadians are going to suffer, less Canadians are going to be tortured — I can’t put it any more simply than that.”
New Democrat MP Randall Garrison, who represents Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke in British Columbia, described it as a great day for the House of Commons.
“But there are still people who are being subjected to conversion therapy, there are still transgender people and non-binary people who are being subjected to what’s supposed to be therapy and trying to talk them out of who they are.”
Conversion therapy aims to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual, their gender identity to cisgender, or their gender expression to match the sex they were assigned at birth.
According to the Government of Canada, the practice can take various forms, including counselling and behavioural modification.
This is the third time the Liberals have tried to ban conversion therapy in recent years. Two previous versions of the bill died on the order paper.
