The Canadian conversion therapy bill is terrible and should never have been proposed, but:
1. Canada has a terrible track record of enforcement. Right now it is effectively free and legal in most Canadian metro areas to steal property under $5k from businesses and to assault strangers as long as injuries are non-lethal and not placed on Youtube. I have no faith that this law will actually be enforced in any meaningful way by understaffed RCMP who can barely keep on top of street crime and can't keep perps in jail thanks to the justice system releasing everyone instantly.
2. The law as passed is vague and a competent lawyer could create a lot of doubt as to the exact reach of "conversion". It is supposed to allow therapists to properly explore gender dysphoria, which would reasonably include looking at confounding factors and co-morbidities (this is why the Conservatives allowed it, although they shouldn't have because it's a fucking stupid bill). "For greater certainty, this definition does not include a practice, treatment or service that relates to the exploration or development of an integrated personal identity — such as a practice, treatment or service that relates to a person’s gender transition — and that is not based on an assumption that a particular sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression is to be preferred over another." So it seems that quite a lot of intent would need to be proven to nail a conviction under this bill - how do you demonstrate that a competent therapist, trying to tease out dysphoria from depression, was acting maliciously with a definite preference? Remember, the Canadian Crown can barely keep on top of actual factual broken-windows crimes right now.
If Canada wants a slam dunk conviction under this law, they will need to find something like a Christian pray-the-gay-away camp- somewhere where any reasonable person could agree that the treatment is unethical and designed to convert. I think the actual effect of this bill will be similar to the abortion laws passed in Ireland and Poland: while the lawmakers argue that clinicians still have lots of choice, the actual professionals who are terrified for their licenses will become excessively risk-averse and won't touch clients whose allegations could tank their licenses. Irish and Polish doctors, despite being competent, let women die of their dead fetuses rather than abort them because the doctors were terrified of jail time. They knew the right thing to do, but felt that they could not legally do it. Once the women die,
the government blames the doctors anyway. I think this will do the same to gender therapists: the consequences of one of these clients hitting them with a criminal accusation is terrible- potentially jail, a threat to their license, their ability to help anyone else removed for all time- and so the smart move is not to treat this population at all. Because unlike docs, who are legally obligated to help pregnant women presenting to hospital, therapists are not obligated to help trans people by law.
Tl;dr: this bill probably won't do anything but shut down some crazy Christians and force shrinks to avoid trannies