Richmond Centre Conservative member of Parliament Alice Wong refused an interview from the Richmond News about why she voted against a bill to restrict conversion therapy.
In fact, in a request for an interview, Wong’s office manager Sasha Peters emailed the News saying Bill C-6 is a sensitive topic, and “as the potential for miscommunication is high, on this particular topic we are choosing to communicate in writing.”
Both Wong and Steveston-Richmond East MP Kenny Chiu voted against the final version of the bill.
Conversion therapy seeks to change someone’s sexual orientation to be heterosexual, something the bill’s summary states “causes harm to persons who are subjected to it, particularly children.”
Instead of doing an interview, Wong’s office sent a written statement about why she voted against the bill, which read, in part, “the government should not be in the business of dictating conversations people have with each other. Bill C-6 puts an implicit veil of prosecution on such conversation if the ‘incorrect’ topic is discussed.”
In fact, Bill C-6 allows consenting adults to take part in conversion therapy, but it prohibits charging a fee as well as promoting and advertising it.
The bill, an amendment to Canada’s Criminal Code which passed 263-63, also makes it illegal to subject a child to conversion therapy or to send a child abroad for conversion therapy.
Chiu told the News the bill, in its current form, made the definition of conversion therapy too broad and limited access to adults, who might want to seek it out, by not allowing it to be promoted or advertised.
“I’m not satisfied (the bill) strikes a balance... (between) protecting Canadians’ rights and also protecting young Canadians not being subjected to conversion therapy,” Chiu said.
Chiu said in principle he opposes conversion therapy but with “any law we have to be careful.”
But Chiu’s “nay” vote was enough to make two recent Steveston-London grads leave a youth advisory council run by his office.
Mina Chong and Krishangi Dandapure both resigned from the council after hearing about Chiu’s vote.
While Dandapure had heard of Chiu attending an anti-SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) meeting, she thought, hearing his more recent comments supporting the LGBTQ community, that he’d had a shift in perspective.
So, when he voted against Bill C-6, it was “quite a shock.”
“Because of the extremity of conversion therapy, I think there was, for me, outrage,” Dandapure said.
Chong and Dandapure wrote to the MP’s office and sent a letter to the News stating their reasons for stepping down from the youth advisory council.
Chiu has said on his website and in Parliament how conversion therapy is dangerous, Chong pointed out.
“But then to see this vote against a ban… this was something really brought me to a decision where I decided this letter needed to be written and this brought to (the public’s) attention,” Chong said.
Many Conservative MPs including Erin O’Toole, the Conservative leader of the opposition, however, voted in favour of the bill.
The vote on the third reading of Bill C-6 in Parliament was 263-63 in favour.
