HIV rates are on the rise, and yet we know what needs to be done to prevent new transmissions while protecting the health and centering the human rights of people living with and affected by HIV
December 1, 2025 – Toronto, ON – Today, on World AIDS Day, the HIV Legal Network has released its inaugural report on the state of the HIV response in Canada, highlighting an urgent need to remove legal and policy barriers to HIV prevention, treatment, and care. Despite major advances in HIV prevention and treatment, HIV rates are currently rising in Canada and we will not meet our international commitments to end HIV as a public health threat by 2030, nor have we met our 2025 95-95-95 targets.
Canada’s international commitments to ending HIV — at home and internationally — include a United Nations target to ensure that 95% of people living with HIV in Canada know their status, 95% of people who are diagnosed are accessing treatment, and 95% of people on treatment are able to achieve an undetectable viral load. No province or territory has met all of the 95-95-95 targets, with British Columbia closest at 95-94-96.
Key recommendations from The State of HIV in Canada: Rights, Progress, and Unfinished Work paint a clear picture of how governments at all levels are hampering access to HIV prevention and harm reduction tools that hold the promise of ending HIV transmission in Canada, while failing to provide universal access to HIV treatment and care that would enable people living with HIV to live full, healthy lives. Leadership is needed now.
“Canada made a real commitment to ending HIV, one that was realistic and achievable through increased prevention, testing, and treatment access,” say Janet Butler-McPhee and Sandra Ka Hon Chu, Co-Executive Directors of the HIV Legal Network. “It also committed to repealing punitive laws and policies that impede this access. There have been lost opportunities in the last five years, but we hope the Canadian government will recognize that our commitments are achievable with the right mix of political will, and legal and policy change to ensure support and services that respect the dignity and rights of people living with and affected by HIV in this country.”
The report, which includes provincial and territorial evaluations based on six key metrics from access to prevention and treatment to an enabling legal environment to reporting and evaluation, finds that the rising rate of new cases in Canada is being largely driven by new transmissions in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
HIV continues to disproportionately affect racialized people in Canada, with Indigenous and Black people overrepresented in overall numbers and new transmissions. Men who have sex with men and transgender and gender-diverse people also experience disproportionately higher HIV rates than the general population, as do people who are criminalized, including people who use drugs, sex workers, and people who have experienced incarceration.
You can read the full report here, and download the recommendations here.
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Media Contact: Dylan DeMarsh, Digital and Strategic Communications Officer, HIV Legal Network d.dmarsh@hivlegalnetwork.ca