Derek Sloan? Don't stop there, hey... ohOpenlyGayOne, care to comment on the results of that Second Reading vote on Bill C-6 where:
=> 7 Conservatives voted NO... 2 Conservatives voted ABSTAINED... and 15 CONSERVATIVES didn't vote at all (like former leader Andrew Scheer). The HOC Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights recently completed its review of Bill C-6 and has sent the Bill with amendments to Third Reading.
As the token homo here, I support in principle the idea of a ban on conversion therapy. And there's no doubt in my mind that Derek Sloan and others opposed C-6 because they're dickheads. O'Toole will have ongoing challenges keeping the dickhead wing of the party on a tight leash, just as Stephen Harper did. Nonetheless, Harper was PM for almost a decade and the alleged so-con assault on gay rights never materialized. I don't fear what might happen in the unlikely event of an O'Toole government either.
With that out of the way, there are reasons to be concerned about what a ban on conversion therapy might mean in practice. Religious groups have their own objections regarding whether discussing religious principles could become criminalized; I personally don't give a crap about those guys. Another concern, one that I take more seriously, is that a ban on conversion therapy could have a chilling effect on doctors trying to treat young people with gender identity issues. Gender identity issues can be a symptom of deeper problems, including trauma and sexual abuse and depression. Some patients, and even some doctors, see gender identity as the root of all their problems when in reality it's just a symptom. There has been a major controversy going on in the UK over this, centered around the National Health Service's Tavistock Gender Identity Clinic. There is concern that some young people are being given hormones and mastectomies when what they really need is mental heath care. One of those young people-- Keira Bell-- successfully sued Tavistock for failing to adequately assess her needs and rushing her into a medical transition that she was too young to consent to. A bill that fails to provide every assurance to doctors that they won't be accused of attempting conversion therapy for doing their due diligence for patients who want to transition is a bad bill. The last thing we would want when a patient shows up and says "I think I'm a boy, gimme some hormones right now" is for a doctor to decide that just giving her the hormones is safer than risking a complaint and a kerfuffle with the college of physicians if he challenges her self-diagnosis.
Lametti says the bill provides such assurances, but like C-16 it's probably going to be a "wait and see" thing to see how it actually turns out.
-k