{"id":18423,"date":"2019-12-06T11:46:52","date_gmt":"2019-12-06T16:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aidslaw.ca\/site\/?p=18423"},"modified":"2022-09-25T21:17:54","modified_gmt":"2022-09-26T01:17:54","slug":"media-advisory-prison-needle-exchange-program-court-hearing","status":"publish","type":"news22","link":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/media-advisory-prison-needle-exchange-program-court-hearing\/","title":{"rendered":"Media advisory: Prison needle exchange program court hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 align=\"center\"><\/h3>\n<h1 align=\"center\"><b><span lang=\"EN-CA\">FORMER PRISONER AND HIV GROUPS IN COURT SUING THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA FOR FAILING TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO EFFECTIVE PRISON NEEDLE AND SYRINGE PROGRAM <\/span><\/b><\/h1>\n<p><i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<p><b>The Canadian HIV\/AIDS Legal Network, a former prisoner, and three other HIV organizations are suing the Government of Canada over its failure to provide prisoners with easy, confidential, and effective access to needle and syringe programs. <\/b>Due to the scarcity of sterile injection equipment in prison, people who inject drugs behind bars are forced to share and re-use injection equipment, significantly increasing their risk of contracting HIV and hepatitis C (HCV). We will be arguing in the <span lang=\"EN-CA\">Ontario Superior Court of Justice<\/span><span lang=\"EN-CA\"> <\/span>that the federal government must meet its legal obligation to protect the health of people in prison. They can do this by introducing an effective prison needle and syringe program in every federal prison.<span lang=\"EN-CA\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>WHAT:<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Court hearing on Canada\u2019s \u201cPrison Needle Exchange Program\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>WHO:<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Steve Simons (former prisoner), Canadian HIV\/AIDS Legal Network, Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network, Prisoners with HIV\/AIDS Support Action Network, and CATIE<\/p>\n<p>vs.<\/p>\n<p>Government of Canada (Minister of Public Safety, Correctional Service of Canada, Commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, and Attorney General of Canada)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>WHEN:<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Monday, December 9, 2019 | Start time 10:00 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>WHERE:<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Osgoode Hall, 130 Queen Street West, Courtroom No. 5, Toronto, Ontario<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><i>Media and public are welcome. Please let us know if you plan to attend and interviews can be arranged.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">-30-<\/p>\n<p><b>Media contact<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-CA\">Emma Riach<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-CA\">Communications and Campaigns Officer <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-CA\">Canadian HIV\/AIDS Legal Network<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-CA\">Telephone: +1 416 595-1666 ext. 236<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-CA\">Email:<\/span><span lang=\"EN-CA\"> <\/span><a href=\"mailto:eriach@aidslaw.ca\">eriach@aidslaw.ca<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FORMER PRISONER AND HIV GROUPS IN COURT SUING THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA FOR FAILING TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO EFFECTIVE PRISON NEEDLE AND SYRINGE PROGRAM \u00a0 The Canadian HIV\/AIDS Legal Network, a former prisoner, and three other HIV organizations are suing the Government of Canada over its failure to provide prisoners with easy, confidential, and effective &#8230; <a title=\"Media advisory: Prison needle exchange program court hearing\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/media-advisory-prison-needle-exchange-program-court-hearing\/\" aria-label=\"More on Media advisory: Prison needle exchange program court hearing\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"publication_topics":[147,155],"publication_language":[184],"class_list":["post-18423","news22","type-news22","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","publication_topics-drug-policy","publication_topics-prisons","publication_language-english"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news22\/18423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news22"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news22"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news22\/18423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18430,"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news22\/18423\/revisions\/18430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"publication_topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication_topics?post=18423"},{"taxonomy":"publication_language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication_language?post=18423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}