Federal government introduces legislation to ban conversion therapy in Canada

The federal government today announced new legislation that would effectively ban the practice of conversion therapy in Canada.

The proposed legislation will be “among the most comprehensive in the world,” the government said in a news release.

Justice Minister David Lametti, alongside several other ministers, is expected to speak about the legislation at a 4:30 p.m. ET news conference in Ottawa.

Conversion therapy is the discredited practice of trying to change an individual’s sexual orientation to heterosexual, to change an individual’s gender identity to cisgender, or to change their gender expression to match the sex they were assigned at birth.