The House of Commons rose for a 2-month break on Wednesday. Five bills were passed this week which have now moved to the Senate. Bills C-10 and C-6 are two of these that are now in the Upper Chamber. The other bills are the budget Bill C-30, the climate Bills C-12 and C-206.
It is interesting to note that the Senate has extended its sitting to next Tuesday in order to address these five bills.
In the case of the budget and climate bills, Senators have been conducting weeks of "pre-study," where they are able to assess the legislative proposals in general, before the document is actually before them, raising the likelihood that these bills will pass without being viewed as senators offering a "rubber stamp" of approval.
The same cannot be said of Bills C-10 and C-6. Some Senators like Pamela Wallin have signalled they want the time to dive deeply into C-10 especially after a series of secret amendments were made last minute.
Similar issues may face the conversion therapy bill C-6. Notably more of the Conservative caucus voted against it than voted for it. We all oppose conversion therapy. But Bill C-6 proposes to use an overreaching definition of "conversion therapy" that would needlessly criminalize normal conversations between children and their parents, teachers, counsellors, and mentors about gender and sexual behaviour.
105 Senators are assigned based on regions - Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Maritime provinces, Western provinces and the three Northern Territories.
Please be in prayer for the Senate. Also, make phone calls and forward this to your contacts. Let's get as many people praying and contacting senators and media as possible.
PRAY: Our Senators would dig their heals in and stand as principled men and women using whatever means possible to inform our media and Canadians of this injustice.
Pray that the Senate will make simple amendments to the definition in Bill C-6 so that parents, teachers, counsellors and mentors are not at risk of jail time just for talking.