Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Hastings-Lennox and Addington MP Derek Sloan labeled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s intent to ban conversion therapy as child abuse.
Sloan, one of four candidates in the race for the Conservative Party of Canada leadership, made the claim during a videoconference webinar.
“The Liberals have said ‘no, you can’t get counselling and as a parent if you take your kid to get counselling for this, you can go to jail for five years,” Sloan said. “That’s insane, that’s ridiculous. But on the other hand you’re allowed to put your kid on these invasive medical regimes, allowed to give them these puberty blockers. You’re allowed to literally cut off their healthy breasts and other sex organs. That is child abuse. I accuse Justin Trudeau and his government of child abuse. That’s what they’re putting into law and we need to wake up. I’m telling you there’s not a single person I know, whether they’re Conservative, Liberal, whatever, that agrees with that policy. We can win on this issue.”
The law Sloan is referring to is C-8, which was introduced on March 9 of this year. It seeks to criminalize the act of causing a person to undergo conversion therapy against their will, causing a minor to undergo conversion therapy, doing anything for the purpose of removing a minor from Canada with the intention the minor undergo conversion therapy, advertising an offer to provide conversion therapy and receiving a financial or other material benefit from the provision of conversion therapy. The bill goes on to describe conversion therapy as “a practice, treatment or service designed to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual or gender identity to cisgender, or to repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour.”
The bill specifies that conversion therapy does not include a practice, treatment or services that relates to a person’s gender transition or to a person’s exploration of their identity or to its development.
In a statement to CTVNews, Sloan reaffirmed his comments.
“With Bill C-8, the Liberals are effectively putting into law child abuse,” read Sloan’s statement. “Bill C-8 encourages sex change operations on minors because it says the only thing you can do for your child is either nothing, or to put them on a path to a surgical sex change. If a child needs counselling and the government blocks the parent with the threat of jail for getting counselling, that is abuse.”
On Twitter Sloan went on to say Bill C-8 outlaws the “counseling for children who are gender confused” and promised to bring in legislation to ban ‘sex-change surgeries for minors.”
Fellow Conservative leadership candidate Peter MacKay took to social media to express his disagreement with Sloan’s comments.
“Forcing a child into ‘conversion therapy’ is child abuse and it absolutely must be banned. Derek’s remarks are reprehensible,” MacKay tweeted.