Publications

You have the right to privacy when it comes to your HIV status. Your HIV status is your personal health information. Most provinces and territories in Canada have laws that require health professionals to keep your personal health information private (confidential). These laws set rules around when healthcare workers can collect, use, or reveal your … Read more

The HIV Legal Network and HALCO strongly oppose the Measures Respecting Premises with Illegal Drug Activity Act, 2025 (MRPIDAA), which risks further destabilizing access to housing and deepening the harms experienced by people who use drugs. By introducing new provincial offences that will expose landlords to significant penalties where they are found to have “knowingly … Read more

Bill C-12 will overhaul how people in Canada can access refugee protection or maintain lawful status by introducing new eligibility bars to refugee protection, broadening government discretion to end refugee claims, granting government sweeping new powers to cancel immigration status, and authorizing increased data-sharing of personal information across government agencies and with foreign governments. Submission … Read more

It’s Not So Simple: The impact of simple drug possession and trafficking offences on health equity builds on research demonstrating the many harms resulting from laws and policies that punish people who use drugs by specifically examining the consequences of recent shifts in how police and prosecutors pursue and lay drug possession and trafficking charges. … Read more

Canada must ensure that women, trans, and gender-diverse people have access to gender-responsive and culturally safe healthcare, including harm reduction programs, in prison.

The HIV Legal Network promotes the human rights of people living with HIV or AIDS and other populations disproportionately affected by HIV and criminalization, in Canada and internationally. In 2021, we undertook a planning process that would shape the strategic goals and priorities for the organization’s next five years (2022-2027). To do this, we sought … Read more

In 2021, the HIV Legal Network undertook a planning process that would shape the strategic goals and priorities for the organization’s next five years (2022-2027). To do this, we sought the input of a broad range of stakeholders, from partner organizations to people living with and affected by HIV and criminalization, to staff. All identified … Read more

Respect. Protect. Fulfill. You can help challenge wrongs, advance rights, and transform lives. Denied basic healthcare. Criminalized and vilified for love. Unfairly targeted by police. These abuses, and more, are too often the experience of people living with HIV and of communities affected by HIV. At the HIV Legal Network, our mission has always been … Read more

Seizing the moment to push for concrete and lasting change.