Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act Wallet Cards now available

With Canada’s fatal overdose crisis still surging, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, in collaboration with the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council, issued 50,000 wallet-size cards with vital information about the 2017 Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act. The cards and an accompanying fact sheet were provided to people who use drugs, service providers and volunteer organizations … Read more

See an overdose? Call 911 immediately

With Canada’s fatal overdose crisis still surging, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, in collaboration with the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council, issued 50,000 wallet-size cards with vital information about the 2017 Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act. The cards and an accompanying fact sheet were provided to people who use drugs, service providers and volunteer organizations … Read more

Adequately funding Canada’s federal HIV strategy

An open letter, sent on December 20, 2016 to Prime Minister Trudeau, Finance Minister Bill Morneau and then Health Minister Jane Philpott to draw attention to a serious, ongoing challenge to the HIV response in Canada. Over the last decade, there has been a very substantial loss of federal funds that were to have been … Read more

An important, modest advance on World AIDS Day

Today, after years of advocacy by community organizations, both the federal and Ontario governments have finally recognized the need to limit the “overcriminalization of HIV” in Canada. They have each taken a first step toward that end—specifically, by recognizing that a person living with HIV who has a suppressed viral load should not be criminally … Read more

Time to Act: Over 150 Organizations Across Canada Call on Federal and Provincial Governments to End Unjust Criminalization of HIV

With World AIDS Day just a few days away, the Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization (CCRHC) has released a joint Community Consensus Statement endorsed by over 150 organizations across the country, from the HIV sector and beyond. Developed through several months of cross-country consultation, the statement shows clear consensus against the current overly broad … Read more

Representatives from the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and the HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario to speak to House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration

OTTAWA November 17, 2017 — Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (“IRPA”), foreign nationals are inadmissible to Canada if their health condition might reasonably be expected to cause an “excessive demand” on health or social services, or if they have an inadmissible family member. Due to the high cost of antiretroviral medications, people living … Read more

One Week in Jamaica: Celebrating LGBTQI lives and local leadership

Maurice Tomlinson’s 2017 Montego Bay Pride video diary In October, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network helped launch Intimate Conviction, a two-day international conference examining the Church and anti-gay laws across the Commonwealth, and supported a new generation of local LGBTQI leaders to organize the third successful Montego Bay Pride, with more than 850 people participating. … Read more

Submission to the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration in relation to its study of Federal Government Policies and Guidelines Regarding Medical Inadmissibility of Immigrants

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (“IRPA”) stipulates that foreign nationals are inadmissible to Canada on health grounds if their health condition might reasonably be expected to cause an “excessive demand” on health or social services, or if they have an inadmissible family member (i.e., an inadmissible spouse or dependent child). In this submission, we will … Read more

Montego Bay Pride 2017: “Pride is where I can be free and truly express myself without fear”

By Maurice Tomlinson, Senior Policy Analyst, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network October 24, 2017 For the third year in a row the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network collaborated with local and international partners to host a successful and incident-free Montego Bay Pride! Starting with about 150 participants in 2015, Montego Bay Pride expanded to over 300 people … Read more