CALGARY—The future of the push to ban conversion therapy in Alberta is unclear after the government withdrew formal support from a working group tasked with recommending ways to ban the practice, largely considered harmful to the LGBTQ community.

The former NDP government set up the 12-member working group — two MLAs as well as academics, faith leaders, LGBTQ community members, and lawyers — in February. It had a mandate to meet regularly for five months and submit a report to Alberta’s health minister on ways to ban pseudo-scientific treatment aimed at changing someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Steve Buick, press secretary for Health Minister Tyler Shandro, told Postmedia that the group had been disbanded with the change in government, after the United Conservatives won a majority in April.

On Monday, Shandro took to Twitter to insist that the group “was not disbanded by me or my government,” adding “if the NDP working group wish to continue to meet, that’s up to them.”

Later, he wouldn’t answer repeated questions from reporters about whether the group, which he described as an “ad hoc committee,” was still in place. He said in a statement that the government opposes conversion therapy, and he’s willing to hear the group’s recommendations.

Buick, from Shandro’s office, told Star Calgary in an email that working group members can keep meeting “if they choose to” and give feedback, “but they won’t be a ‘working group’ per se, so they won’t be paid for meetings.”

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“We’ve said the therapy isn’t practised in Alberta and can’t be, so there doesn’t seem to be a case for more work toward a potential ban as the main purpose for a committee,” he added.

The Canadian Psychological Association and the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP) already oppose conversion therapy, saying there’s no evidence that it works, and it can in fact make people’s lives worse.

But advocates for stopping conversion therapy say that even though it’s explicitly barred by medical professions, it’s still routinely done in Alberta. Private groups still offer it, cloaking the work in sanitized terms or representing it as a faith-based support group. People who have experienced conversion therapy describe it as “insidious,” leaving long-lasting psychological damage.

Working group co-chair Glynnis Lieb, the director of the University of Alberta’s Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services, said the committee was created to tackle the complicated question of how to address conversion therapy being done behind closed doors.

“That was the purpose of the working group: figuring out how we address all these grey areas that aren’t easily regulated,” she said.

“We had the working group because we were being told by Albertans that they were experiencing conversion therapy.”

Lieb said the group had to pause its work when the election was called in March. Members last met on March 11, about a week before the writ dropped, and they had planned to keep meeting throughout June.

“I have no intention of giving up on this work and I think a lot of us feel the same way. We’re just trying to figure out what that looks like,” she said.

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Five members of the group, including Lieb, told Star Calgary they hadn’t heard anything about support for the group being pulled until Monday.

Chris Pappas, the rector at Edmonton’s Holy Trinity Anglican Church and a faith leader in the group, said a person who has been harmed by conversion therapy in the past reached out to him Monday, asking what was going on.

“I have seen so many people who have been hurt by it that I would be quite saddened if we didn’t put some protections in,” he said.

Junaid Jahangir is an economics professor at MacEwan University who has also written about conversion therapy in Muslim communities. He said his and other group members’ work to stop the harms of conversion therapy will continue regardless of the group’s future. But he added he has doubts that the provincial government intends to act on any recommendations they offer, and the formal support is a loss.

“Having the patronage of the government gives you an official stamp that says this is something that should be taken seriously,” he said.

“We were looking at how can we best reach out to a very vulnerable population ... For these people, the patronage of the government would have been important: the government stands behind you and will not allow harm to be inflicted upon you.”

Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and Ontario have all passed legislation banning conversion therapy in recent years. And on Monday, the B.C. Greens introduced legislation that would stop the use of conversion therapy in the province for those under 19 years old.

NDP MLA Nicole Goehring is the sole political representative who sits on the group, since former MLA Michael Connolly didn’t run for re-election this year. She said she plans to sit down with Shandro to get “clarity” on what the future of the working group looks like, and the health minister said he would be willing to meet.

Lieb said she’s hopeful the group can finish the work it started.

“I think the onus is on us to still do the work and force (the government) to deny us, if they’re going to, rather than just assuming that they will. It really requires a lot of support from community and from allies to step up and say, ‘This is important,’” she said.

“We know that we can’t let it go. We would be letting people down.”

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