The Liberal government’s bill to ban conversion therapy has been unanimously passed in the Senate.
Conservative Sen. Leo Housakos put forward a motion Tuesday to fast-track the bill through the upper chamber without changes.
“C-4 is a bill that has been turned into a controversial political football, unfortunately,” Housakos told his fellow senators.
“I think we have to get to the reflex in this institution, that when something is in the universal interest, public interest, that we should not create unnecessary duplication and engage into unnecessary debates.”
The move comes a week after MPs unanimously agreed to pass Bill C-4 through all stages in the House of Commons without amendment.
The bill will officially become law after receiving royal assent.
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.
