The Trudeau government's legislation to regulate the internet has much in common with the conversion therapy ban it passed a year ago, according to an advocate for freedom of choice in counselling..Jojo Ruba founded Free to Care in 2020 in opposition to a City of Calgary bylaw to ban conversion therapy that ultimately passed in May of 2020. Similar federal legislation did not pass prior to the 2021 election, but its successor passed with unanimous consent in the current Parliament. Ruba believes bills before the House purportedly made to help Canadian media industries and online harm will prove to be something else, just as he believes it was for Bill C-4..“The government is regulating the moral religious and sexual behaviors of Canadians in the name of preventing torture and harm, which is interesting because none of the definitions of conversion therapy, none of the bylaws, or provincial laws, or the federal law, actually mention the words coercion or torture or harm,” Ruba said in an interview with Western Standard..“If they get away with writing these kinds of laws, then they can get away with regulating the rights of Canadians on a whole bunch of other things using the exact same tactic. And we're actually already seeing that with their new proposed laws on internet hate speech that they want to regulate to the CRTC. All of that is going to be the same modus operandi.”.Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, passed the House of Commons on June 21, but has not yet faced second reading in the senate. Other pending online content bills include C-18 (the Online News Act), C-26 (Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act), C-27 (Digital Charter Implementation Act 2022) and a promised but unnamed online harms bill..In a commentary entitled “Debate on Bill C-11 went nowhere, then it passed: is it a bellwether?” published by the Macdonald Laurier Institute, Irene Berkowitz said 16 expert analyses of the bill’s impact on the media economy were ignored by the government..“I appeared on May 24 to assert that Bill C-11 does not support Canadian storytelling, but rather, obsolete ways of defining and distributing Canadian stories. I expressed concern that Bill C-11 would chill Canadian media innovation,” Berkowitz wrote..Ruba said conversion therapy bans passed in Calgary and Ottawa despite extensive testimony he rallied and has also had its own chill effect on pastors and counsellors..“Sexual attractions are for many people, fluid; they change from time to time, naturally from as you grow older. Major studies show, for example, that young women who identify in their teens as bisexual, the vast majority are dating only men by the time they reach their twenties. And why is that? Because gender fluidity is a natural state, even from the language of the modern construct,” Ruba said..“It doesn't make any sense to make something illegal then, in terms of getting counseling to help modify your sexual behavior, when that can happen naturally.”.The City of Calgary website said its definition of conversion therapy was based on “extensive research and input from professionals in the field” and “other definitions which have withstood legal challenges,” among other things. However, Ruba disagrees..“The city councillors were so biased so against us, yet our people made the best and most articulate arguments….The [Calgary] municipal bylaw is very badly written. It's the same group of people who have written it here in the municipal governments in Alberta who wrote it in the province of Quebec and who wrote it federally. Other jurisdictions like the Yukon, PEI, Ontario, Vancouver's have conversion therapy laws, but they're not as draconian,” Ruba said..“We actually looked at 80 different definitions of conversion therapy from around the world, from Australia to Israel to Brazil. And none of them use Canada's definition of conversion therapy, particularly the regulation on sexual behavior and consenting adults cannot have conversations with people of their choice.”.One year ago, the Conservative Party made motions to expedite the passage of Bill C-4 through the House of Commons and the Senate even though the reach and wording of the bill was more expansive than a version introduced in the previous parliament. Ruba said that represented a breach of procedure and believes it also contributed to the ousting of Erin O’Toole as party leader..“The Liberal government under Trudeau a few years ago passed a law that requires the Justice Department to do a vetting of constitutional jurisdiction on any criminal law…[and] release that to being passed. Well, that research was quite telling, to say there is potential harm to the fundamental rights, especially of consenting adults, by creating this criminal law preventing us from getting the counseling we choose. But that report did not come out until the day it already got royal assent. So it actually they actually broke the law when they passed this law, because that Justice Department report had not been released yet. So there would have been no way for the any of the members of parliament to have read that first before voting on the law,” Ruba said..Ruba said no one has ever been charged in Canada under a conversion therapy ban, and if they were, his organization would mobilize to fight it. However, he said some pastors and counsellors have backed down..“The self censorship is very profound…[O]ne of the key groups that were helping provide the support groups, they've actually shut down that section of their ministry, they no longer help people who need this help, who want this help, who are asking for this help, to simply reduce or stops things like same sex pornography or gays' fantasies,” he said..“There's a pastor here in Calgary with a fairly large church, from what I understand, that basically said, even if someone from his own congregation would come to him looking for help, he would just say no, because of this law…If, for example, I were to come to my pastor or this pastor and say, ‘Hey, can you help me with porn addiction?’ The first thing the pastor would need to say is, ‘Is it gay porn or straight porn? Because if it's straight porn, I can help you. But if it's gay porn, I can't.’ Just think about how awfully discriminatory that is.”.The Free to Care founder said he has had speaking engagements in B.C., Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario to inform pastors and counsellors on what do in the post-Bill C-4 era..“Part of our response to pastors and church leaders, is to fear not, to not be afraid of such ridiculous laws that can't be enforced because they break the constitutional rights of Canadians…Feelings change all the time, regardless of how many criminal laws they create.”
The Trudeau government's legislation to regulate the internet has much in common with the conversion therapy ban it passed a year ago, according to an advocate for freedom of choice in counselling..Jojo Ruba founded Free to Care in 2020 in opposition to a City of Calgary bylaw to ban conversion therapy that ultimately passed in May of 2020. Similar federal legislation did not pass prior to the 2021 election, but its successor passed with unanimous consent in the current Parliament. Ruba believes bills before the House purportedly made to help Canadian media industries and online harm will prove to be something else, just as he believes it was for Bill C-4..“The government is regulating the moral religious and sexual behaviors of Canadians in the name of preventing torture and harm, which is interesting because none of the definitions of conversion therapy, none of the bylaws, or provincial laws, or the federal law, actually mention the words coercion or torture or harm,” Ruba said in an interview with Western Standard..“If they get away with writing these kinds of laws, then they can get away with regulating the rights of Canadians on a whole bunch of other things using the exact same tactic. And we're actually already seeing that with their new proposed laws on internet hate speech that they want to regulate to the CRTC. All of that is going to be the same modus operandi.”.Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, passed the House of Commons on June 21, but has not yet faced second reading in the senate. Other pending online content bills include C-18 (the Online News Act), C-26 (Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act), C-27 (Digital Charter Implementation Act 2022) and a promised but unnamed online harms bill..In a commentary entitled “Debate on Bill C-11 went nowhere, then it passed: is it a bellwether?” published by the Macdonald Laurier Institute, Irene Berkowitz said 16 expert analyses of the bill’s impact on the media economy were ignored by the government..“I appeared on May 24 to assert that Bill C-11 does not support Canadian storytelling, but rather, obsolete ways of defining and distributing Canadian stories. I expressed concern that Bill C-11 would chill Canadian media innovation,” Berkowitz wrote..Ruba said conversion therapy bans passed in Calgary and Ottawa despite extensive testimony he rallied and has also had its own chill effect on pastors and counsellors..“Sexual attractions are for many people, fluid; they change from time to time, naturally from as you grow older. Major studies show, for example, that young women who identify in their teens as bisexual, the vast majority are dating only men by the time they reach their twenties. And why is that? Because gender fluidity is a natural state, even from the language of the modern construct,” Ruba said..“It doesn't make any sense to make something illegal then, in terms of getting counseling to help modify your sexual behavior, when that can happen naturally.”.The City of Calgary website said its definition of conversion therapy was based on “extensive research and input from professionals in the field” and “other definitions which have withstood legal challenges,” among other things. However, Ruba disagrees..“The city councillors were so biased so against us, yet our people made the best and most articulate arguments….The [Calgary] municipal bylaw is very badly written. It's the same group of people who have written it here in the municipal governments in Alberta who wrote it in the province of Quebec and who wrote it federally. Other jurisdictions like the Yukon, PEI, Ontario, Vancouver's have conversion therapy laws, but they're not as draconian,” Ruba said..“We actually looked at 80 different definitions of conversion therapy from around the world, from Australia to Israel to Brazil. And none of them use Canada's definition of conversion therapy, particularly the regulation on sexual behavior and consenting adults cannot have conversations with people of their choice.”.One year ago, the Conservative Party made motions to expedite the passage of Bill C-4 through the House of Commons and the Senate even though the reach and wording of the bill was more expansive than a version introduced in the previous parliament. Ruba said that represented a breach of procedure and believes it also contributed to the ousting of Erin O’Toole as party leader..“The Liberal government under Trudeau a few years ago passed a law that requires the Justice Department to do a vetting of constitutional jurisdiction on any criminal law…[and] release that to being passed. Well, that research was quite telling, to say there is potential harm to the fundamental rights, especially of consenting adults, by creating this criminal law preventing us from getting the counseling we choose. But that report did not come out until the day it already got royal assent. So it actually they actually broke the law when they passed this law, because that Justice Department report had not been released yet. So there would have been no way for the any of the members of parliament to have read that first before voting on the law,” Ruba said..Ruba said no one has ever been charged in Canada under a conversion therapy ban, and if they were, his organization would mobilize to fight it. However, he said some pastors and counsellors have backed down..“The self censorship is very profound…[O]ne of the key groups that were helping provide the support groups, they've actually shut down that section of their ministry, they no longer help people who need this help, who want this help, who are asking for this help, to simply reduce or stops things like same sex pornography or gays' fantasies,” he said..“There's a pastor here in Calgary with a fairly large church, from what I understand, that basically said, even if someone from his own congregation would come to him looking for help, he would just say no, because of this law…If, for example, I were to come to my pastor or this pastor and say, ‘Hey, can you help me with porn addiction?’ The first thing the pastor would need to say is, ‘Is it gay porn or straight porn? Because if it's straight porn, I can help you. But if it's gay porn, I can't.’ Just think about how awfully discriminatory that is.”.The Free to Care founder said he has had speaking engagements in B.C., Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario to inform pastors and counsellors on what do in the post-Bill C-4 era..“Part of our response to pastors and church leaders, is to fear not, to not be afraid of such ridiculous laws that can't be enforced because they break the constitutional rights of Canadians…Feelings change all the time, regardless of how many criminal laws they create.”
