Regina City Council has split their regular meeting up into two days.
Wednesday afternoon will be strictly committed to conversion therapy and the debate of whether or not to launch a feasibility study on a conversion therapy ban in the city of Regina.
City Administration has defined conversion therapy as a “practice that seeks to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual, to repress other sexual attraction or behaviors.”
The Canadian Psychological Association, Canadian Psychiatric Association and Canadian Pediatric Society have said conversion therapy is harmful to the LGBTQ community.
Saskatoon has already passed a bylaw that bans the discredited practice.
The rest of council’s regular agenda will be attended to on Thursday.
Related:
“Writing a letter in support of Bill C-6 An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conversion therapy) is not good enough, and does very little to protect LGBTQ+ children and adults in Regina.
Furthermore, the Community Wellness Committee’s report about studying the feasibility of a local conversion therapy ban and reporting back in the middle of 2022 is too vague and will take too long.
Queen City For All is calling on Regina city councillors to do the right thing: pass a motion instructing city administration to draft a bylaw banning conversion therapy in Regina, and shorten the time required by relying on the research, expertise, and wording of the recently-adopted City of Saskatoon bylaw.
We must have a bylaw, and we must have one by summer of this year. Not by the Fall, not sometime in 2022, but by the summer.”
– Statement by Kent Peterson on behalf of Queen City For All
