12 thoughts on “Ways to Take Action”

1. One has nothing to do with the other. We do not treat mental illness, we do not prescribe drugs, we do not cure, we do not diagnose, we do not treat any health condition. We have been trained to help people live healthier lives through lifestyle , nutrition and helping achieve a healthy balance through mind, body and spirit. This saddens me how anyone in their right mind would want to put a stop to anything that contributes to the well being of our society. We must be doing a great job to stir up such controversy.

   1. Thank you Anna for your support. We have just learned that the APA Dictionary of Clinical Psychology (1st edition, 2013) has listed ‘holistic education’ and ‘motivational therapy’ as a psychotherapeutic technique! And since they have made all treatments of human issues, verbal and non-verbal, using psychotherapeutic techniques a ‘controlled act’ we can all see that we are being deprived of our livelihoods through the use of deceptive linguistic acrobatics.

      Please folks, we have the right to our livelihoods, to freedom of speech and association and to choose our treatments…we need to fight so they will continue. Please contribute generously so our future generations will not have endless talk therapy, life-long diagnoses and brain-damaging drugs as ‘options’ for their bumps and bruises of life. It seems they have medicalized human life experience now…waiting in the bushes to capitalize on those needing a hand up instead of having their minds messed with.

2. Well Friends,

   I donated money and signed the Petition and know I am considering another donation.
   The problem is there is no statement of the legal game plan.Where did the $80,000.
   estimate come from. What is this buying us. So far we have seen two legal letters.
   How much has been spent. I think accounting for cost would go a long way to help your campaign for more funding. This should not be an emotion plea it should be a business
   protection plan. Striking a professional pose discussing the ethics of occupational licensing . The defining of terms approach is a good one. It should have a less dramatic attitude and a more matter of fact point form logic to be heard. To be treated as serious business owner operators we have to present arguments that have sound fact based
   comparisons. Who drafted the bill in the first place would be good to know. If we understand the source and their motivations we have a much better chance of foiling them. Having a lay person research this (someone with a stake in the challenge) will be
   much more cost efficient . Also their motivation will be naturally higher than a lawyer who’s motivated by billing . No disrespect to our lawyer, but and Mother protects differently than the babysitter.
   Respectfully Lisa

   1. Your points are well taken and we are acutely aware that we are subject to great scrutiny. It has been 4 laypeople doing all the research for free on just what this was about. We have all taken considerable time out of our own practices to try to rectify all this on behalf of the entire natural movement community. None of us are experts and none of us have ever faced such threats to our livelihoods and our democratic rights, so we are doing our very best, while still trying to make our living. We are truthful and honourable in our intents. We have had a couple of volunteers contact us, but once they learned the extent of the workload involved, they felt they could not fit it into their busy schedules. So we remain three.

      The first we learned of this was in April and despite the help of two MPPs who themselves could not get accurate information, we finally learned about the date of proclamation only in mid-May. At first we were told it was in 1st reading and that Committees had not yet been established. We were unable to get any responses to our enquiries from the College itself. But as we came to learn, in fact, this is already law and it will be enforceable by the College on Oct 1st unless there is a postponement of proclamation and a firm commitment to define the terms used in the legislation in a way that ensures non-psychotherapists are able to practice their assessment and treatments without interference by the College.

      We also finally learned that the greatest issue is the amendment to the RHPA that makes the assessment and treatment of human issues ‘a CONTROLLED act of psychotherapy’. Never mind that they use words like ‘serious condition’, ‘psychotherapeutic techniques’, ‘psychotherapy’ and so on, the fact is that they refuse to define any of those terms and claim they will let the Courts decide, so this entire legislation is open to abuse. Definitely anything you and I do is ‘assessment and treatment’

      So far, 3 of us have been putting in the hundreds of hours needed to set up websites, to get the word out through petitions, to answer questions as best can and to find the right lawyers once we learned just what the threat was. In the meantime, some groups were led to believe by the College that they had no intention of regulating holistic, spiritual, energy or alternative practitioners AS LONG as they don’t do the controlled act of ‘assessment and treatment’. Some group leaders did not listen past “The College has no intention of regulating them”, yet the legislation is clear….they will not prosecute us AS LONG AS we don’t engage in the controlled act of ‘assessment and treatment’. So sure, you can practice Reiki, hypnotherapy or anything else…just don’t get caught assessing and treatment human issues that they have now decided is their domain exclusively. Already, spiritual counsellors are being forced to abandon their approaches to become ‘spiritual psychotherapists’ in order to be free of prosecution for ‘assessing and treating’.

      So there is no ‘accounting’ because we have so far paid for everything personally out-of-pocket. We have done all of the work for free. We received some donations which went DIRECTLY to the lawyer to pay his bills and the short-fall was covered by us. These are all documented, as are the PayPal contributions and the transfers to the lawyer’s trust fund.

      If a good web designer could come forward and set up a more nimble website for us, design a page for release of contribution figures, set up e-transfer and subscribe buttons, etc., we would be delighted. In the meantime, we are trying to manage the website as best we can. None of us have experience with website design and maintenance, so much time goes into trying to learn all this.

      Once we can formally retain the specialist lawyer to handle talks with the Minister and the College to ensure that what we do is not impacted by the legislation, then there will be a formal legal game plan that we can share on the website, with regular updates. Various people will be asked to join the project as representatives of the entire project. They, working together, will instruct the lawyer, be engaged in the discussions with the Minister, act as witnesses in these consultations, etc. etc. To retain the lawyer so that he can get the consultations started with the College and the Minister is $5,000.

      We need practitioners to step up and chip in at least $500 each to get this started asap. The cost of $80,000 is approximate as we don’t know if the College and the Minister will co-operate in keeping us all safer by defining the undefined terms and defining them in a way that makes it clear that the way we assess and treat human issues is not psychotherapeutic. The costs involve the lawyers(s) doing detailed research, including about how other provinces are handling things, going to Toronto for meetings, pulling witnesses and experts together, guiding us through the maze, advising us on how to present our positions with respect to our own particular modalities, getting witnesses to Toronto and so on.

      Anyone who is willing to chip in over $500 will be invited to meetings with the lawyer, etc. As far as handling lawyers, we are doing our best and we feel this specialist lawyer is very principled, very above board. He provided a meeting of over one hour, together with a second lawyer of his firm, pro bono. He laid out what we are up against, how we need to go about it which required initial research on their parts and this was pro bono.

      There are no funds coming directly to any of us volunteers and as you know any contributions by PayPal are carefully accounted for by PayPal, as are transfers to the lawyer’s trust fund. Thus, if you could volunteer your time to monitor the funds and to report on the accounting, etc on the website, that would be most appreciated.

      It has been only 3 months since we found out about this. We are working day and night (literally) to try to make all this work for everyone, but we do need assistance because until we raise the money needed to retain the lawyer to undertake serious discussions with the College and the Ministry, they do not work for free and we do not have the guidance we need.

      In this past Tuesday’s meeting with the specialist lawyer, Ronald Caza of Caza/Saikaley, who has had great success working with this provincial government in the past, we need to staunchly insist that what we do is NOT psychotherapy, that we DO NOT use psychotherapeutic techniques, so that if/when someone is charged, then it is easier to defend ourselves against something that is not defined. We do assessments and treatments of all severities of human issues, but our assessments and treatments are not psychotherapeutic in any way.

      In the meantime, we are told that this matter cannot be taken before the Courts until someone is charged under the legislation.

      We are told that the only practical and least distressful way to approach this is through Ministerial consultations and legal discussions with the College, despite the fact the College have suggested to the Canadian Reiki Association in their response to them, that they will not define any terms and will ‘let the Courts’ decide and further, that it is up to every practitioner to figure out for themselves if they are in violation of the law.

      This task is well beyond the knowledge and capabilities of laypersons to handle alone. As well, laypersons also have to earn a living, therefore asking 4 laypersons to give themselves over to do free work while everyone who has a stake in this waits for updates and accounting is not really fair and of course, is simply not sustainable. Everyone’s livelihood is at stake and everyone must participate either as a volunteer or by chipping in their $500 now because 4 people cannot do this all by themselves.

      As the lawyer so succinctly said to us at the meeting “every practitioner should see the wisdom in chipping in $500 now rather than face having to close their practice, lose all they have achieved or if this is not dealt with soon, face prosecution and a legal fight all by themselves”.

      1. I just started my holistic practice at the beginning of August, I find this to be a grave travesty and abuse against our freedom to be of service to others.

         I would like to contribute my time and help… I was only sent this 2 days ago and it concerns me greatly. I really hope I am not too late to do something to give of myself to this.

         1. Tamara, I’ll contact you directly. Thank you for your support and offer. Once we reach our financial goal, we will be in a much better shape. We just need to keep getting the word out, keep contributing to the defense fund and send really positive energy to the Universe. We are meant to be here, just as we are, because our energies are needed. Nothing happens without a Universal plan.

3. I am very thankful people are stepping up to try to do something about this. I am going to help as well. Please keep us posted with any news. Holistic therapy has been the only thing that has not just masked my symptoms, but has treated the cause and I would be lost without it.

   Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!

   1. If we all stick together and not let the CRPO divide us with statements that mislead people to believe they are safe, we will keep Ontario free of lobby group control. They are not regulating the name…Reiki, Hypnotherapy, spiritual counseling, etc. THEY ARE REGULATING THE ACTIVITY of assessment and treatment. So we are to be left with titles and skills, but no possible way to use them to assess and treat without fear of prosecution or without having to become a psychotherapist! So they are being VERY tricky here, because they know that few people will read past the ‘We are not intending to regulate alternative and holistic practitioners’, and thus presume they are safe. If they read just a little further, they would learn that the intent stated is that ‘We are not intending to regulate alternative and holistic practitioners AS LONG AS THEY DO NOT ASSESS AND TREAT HUMAN DISTURBANCES’, because that is our ‘territory’.

      What the CRPO says is: You can practice whatever you want to…Reiki, Hypnosis, Hypnotherapy, Counseling…AS LONG AS YOU DO NOT DO ASSESSMENTS AND TREATMENTS OF HUMAN DISTURBANCES because assessments and treatments of human disturbances is an ‘act of psychotherapy’ because we say it is.

      Please encourage everyone to continue to contribute whatever they can to continue the legal action to get these undemocratic amendments repealed. From a legal standpoint, we are told they violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, for starters.

   2. Right now, in order to keep the legal fight against this going, we must raise $80,000 by the end of August. I hope that every practitioner in Ontario realizes that chipping in $200 each now is a far wiser action then to end up fighting this alone or having to close up your practice after Oct 1st. So far, the Minister has not responded to our lawyer’s request that he postpone the proclamation of the amendments on Oct 1st. So, please everyone…ACT NOW… donate your share to keep us all free.

      1. Hi Grace, Thank you for everything! Would you email me at julia@instituteofholisticnutrition.com with your contact number regarding a contribution from the Institute of Holistic Nutrition. Thank you, Julia

4. I am shocked by one sided view in this potential take over. For as long as time, people have found help and successful treatment in a huge variety of treatment modalities. How and why can anyone with any real sense of open minded reasoning want to not only dismiss, but make it unlawful to use so many treatments that have proven reliable , since far before pschychotherapy. Why are these types of healers being targeted ?
   I believe as usual, when such drastic matters are taken for no sensible meaning, that it is for MONEY!!!! We all have our rights…until it comes to the higher ups losing money. They want there hands on every bit they can.
   Have we no rights to get help from anyone we want. Do we now need to be forced in a very communist way to seek help where THEY say and PAY what THEY want? WE need to put a stop to this now….let us NOT let THIS one slip by. I HAVE never felt I would fight the government on a decision before BUT this time I WILL,!!! They are hurting the innocent…taking the rights away from the innocent…..why?? MONEY. I say no no no
   I am sad that my beautiful country is resorting to this. Ashamed of my greedy leaders

   1. Thank you for your support Wendy. We will fight this to the Supreme Court if necessary, but please encourage people to donate. This is giving a monopoly in the field of assessment and treatment of human life disturbances to one modality, when they have not proven they are more competent than others.

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