Our efforts to stop the Ontario Minister of Health in his quest to eliminate all competition to his profession and the pharmaceutical machinery that is overtaking our healthcare rights and freedoms has reach another critical point. After two years of trying to get a response from him, what we have finally received is a slap in the face (http://www.stoppsychotherapytakeover.ca/health-ministers-letter-spt-june-16/). The Minister confirms that he alone will decide what treatments and practitioners Ontarians will be permitted to access, even if paying out-of-pocket! The harmful activities of this Minister must be stopped before its too late. Please contribute what you can spare now at www.StopPsychotherapyTakeover.ca. to ensure that our efforts to 1) return healthcare freedoms to the public and 2) ensure protection for holistic practitioners from further Big Pharma-sponsored legislative attacks do not stall. In his long-awaited reply to SPT, Dr. Eric Hoskins merely confirmed that despite all that is unjust and wrong about the controlled act of psychotherapy, he will be proclaiming it and he alone will ultimately decide for all Ontarians who will be permitted to provide mental, emotional and spiritual care and what kind of treatment will be permitted. Even though we highlighted for Minister Hoskins (http://www.stoppsychotherapytakeover.ca/2143-2/) the continuing efforts of medical-pharmaceutical advocates to smear the holistic healthcare community that saves his imploding system $14-20 billion annually in healthcare costs, it seems he will not do his duty to act in the public interest. The Minister made it clear that he still intends to allow only 6 practitioner groups to treat the public for mental, emotional and spiritual issues, without providing any evidence that he has the Constitutional right to remove the individual’s freedom to choose their own practitioner, especially when they are paying out-of-pocket, OR that such elimination of public choice is necessary in the first place. Further, the Minister completely ignored our grave concerns regarding the Ontario Clinic Regulation project http://www.stoppsychotherapytakeover.ca/ontario-clinic-regulation that proposes to eliminate all unregulated healthcare practitioners (non-drug treatments and approaches), even though the public is showing it increasingly prefers natural approaches to wellness. The Minister has ignored the science showing that (a) the public highly values natural approaches, and (b) many natural approaches have been and continue to be scientifically proven safe and effective. Worse, he has ignored the fact that the Texas psychology laws that sought to monopolize all mental healthcare were deemed by a US appeal court to be unconstitutional because they violate the freedom of speech. Psychology laws, and by extension the psychotherapy legislation in Ontario, are also unconstitutional because they are far too broadly written (as intended by psychology lobbyists). When asked if it was possible to draft a narrower definition of the practice of psychology, attorney Mary Louise Serafine, the successful Plaintiff, said, “No. Because there is no scientific basis for it. There isn’t even a general professional consensus about the correct principles and methods of psychology. The lobby is one of self-interest.” http://www.stoppsychotherapytakeover.ca/2537-2 . As Ontarians are broadsided with more and more cuts to hospitals, the nursing profession, front-line healthcare providers, and now the holistic healthcare community that costs the government not one red cent, we are seeing this Minister relentlessly set up one advisory, board, ‘regulatory’ and unaccountable corporation, or committee after another, to be financially supported by already enslaved regulated practitioners and taxpayers. Worse, he is expected to move ahead with proclamation of the controlled act of psychotherapy any day now. The ability to provide guidance about the common problems of life—marriage, children, alcohol, health, no matter how serious—is a foundation of human interaction and society. By limiting the ability of individuals to dispense assistance and advice about mental or emotional problems, such that only those indoctrinated into theories and opinions gleaned in a graduate class may assist and advise others--which is the case with psychotherapy/psychology education-- chills and prohibits protected speech. Such restriction of normal human interaction places everyone in danger and at the mercy of a few self-interest groups. You can help stop this madness by contributing to the letter-writing campaigning, collecting Petition signatures and contributing financially what you can at www.StopPsychotherapyTakeover.ca . Please, don’t let our hard work stall. Contribute now in whatever way you can.