Three B.C. government officials are calling on the feds to ban conversion therapy, adding it to the Criminal Code of Canada.
Attorney General David Eby, Minister of Health Adrian Dix, and MLA for Vancouver-West End Spencer Chandra Herbert sent a letter to The Honourable David Lametti, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, dated today (Aug. 1) asking the code be changed to include the full range of circumstances that this practice occurs.
The letter was in response to a letter Lametti sent on June 21, 2019, regarding the harmful practice of "conversion therapy."
"Conversion therapy is nothing more than ignorance and prejudice disguised as medical treatment," Chandra Herbert says in the letter. "This shameful, unethical exercise has no scientific basis whatsoever and is embedded in hateful, homophobic and transphobic ideologies."
In B.C., there are rules in place prohibiting the services from being offered through the public health-care system.
Regulated health professionals (RHP) are also banned from offering it.
Any RHP in the province that is found to be doing so would be referred for inquiry and potential discipline by their regulatory college.
If anyone was to bill for it under a different billing code, this would be considered fraud.
"If you are gay, you do not need to be fixed. If you are trans, you are accepted here in B.C. No matter who you are, you are beautiful, and we see you," Chandra Herbert adds. "As communities throughout British Columbia celebrate Pride, we know there's much more work to do and we won't stop until the job is done."
There is also a website to begin a complaint with regulatory colleges in B.C.
