Stand against conversion therapy in Canada
 |
|
|
Calling all UFCW Canada activists and allies: your urgent support is needed to help stop the backward practice of conversion therapy, which is ruining lives in the LGBTQI2S community and encouraging discriminatory and harmful attitudes towards sexual orientation and gender identity in Canada.
Conversion therapy includes any measure taken by any person, business, or organization to change, suppress, repair, or demean a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. Both the World Health Organization and the Canadian Psychological Association have denounced this practice as unjustifiable. But conversion therapy is still legally practiced throughout most of Canada.
Like a game of hot potato, the jurisdictional responsibility for this practice has been debated between the federal government and the provinces, territories, and municipalities. And to date, only a handful of jurisdictions have explicitly banned conversion therapy measures.
Conversion therapy runs contrary to each person’s humanity and inalienable human rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Now is the time to stand up for LGBTQI2S rights and say “No!” to conversion therapy. By signing your name to the letter below, you will join thousands of union and community allies in:
- Advocating for a national prohibition on all forms of conversion therapy.
- Calling on the federal government to act immediately and exercise a multi-jurisdictional approach to create legislation that supports a comprehensive ban on conversion therapy.
- Standing with the survivors of conversion therapy, No Conversion Canada, the Egale Canada Human Rights Trust, and the suggested recommendations by other leading experts in the country, including Dr. Kristopher Wells, to ensure that the government’s ban on conversion therapy includes the removal of charitable status for any organization that promotes or practices conversion therapy.
- Affirming that banning conversion therapy needs to entail all measures taken by any person, business, or organization to change, supress, repair, or demean a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. Additionally, any prohibitions should not be limited to minors and should apply to all persons.
