Chapter 15 of the book: “From Access to Empowerment: The Committee for Accessible AIDS Treatment and its work with People living with HIV-AIDS and precarious status” was written by CAAT founding member Dr. Alan Li with the support of CAAT members Derek Thaczuk and Dr. Josephine Wong. It recaps the history of the formation of CAAT; the development, processes and lessons learnt through our first community based action research on improving treatment access for immigrants, refugees and non-status PHAs; and its subsequent impact on the journey of collective empowerment that our communities have taken in the last 13 years.

The book is available from the University of Toronto Press website and Amazon.ca

http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2013.CD18.5

Address: 145 Richmond Street, The Hilton Toronto Hotel
Venue: Tom Thomson Room, Hilton Hotel
Date: Sunday November 1, 2012
Time: 1pm – 3.30pm

FREE for all. You can attend without registering for the OHTN conference, but RSVP is required as space is limited. More information http://www.ohtn.on.ca/Conference/program-at-a-glance.php

Topics for discussions:
- How to develop a community based intervention research project: from building the team to designing the interventions
- Lessons learnt from implementation: research team training, participant recruitment & data collection
-Experiences from our intervention models: Acceptance Commitment Training (ACT) & Social Justice Capacity Building (SJCB)

Please RSVP Henry: hluyombya@ohtn.on.ca or Tel.416.642.6486 ext 2265

2012 CHAMP Pre-OHTN Conference Satellite Session

As we are all aware by now the supreme court of Canada’s decision on the new approach to the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure, released on Friday October 10^th 2012(http://scc.lexum.org/en/2012/2012scc47/2012scc47.html) was extremely disappointing and will have serious implications not only for people living with HIV in Canada, but also for public health, police practices and the Canadian criminal justice system.  Committee for Accessible AIDS Treatment (CAAT) in partnership with the HIV Legal Clinic of Ontario (HALCO) will be hosting a community forum to help people living with HIV understands the law.The community forum will be held on:

 Date: 31^ST October 2012

Venue: 20 Victoria street 4^th floor boardroom

Time: 3pm to 6pm

Please note this community forum is open only to Ethno Racial People Living with HIV.Please see attached flyer and circulate to appropriate community members.

RSVP TO: Godelive Ndayikengurukiye at outreach@hivimmigration.ca  or TEL: 416 364 2261 EXT 2236

IMMIGRATION AND LAW-1_HL

(http://scc.lexum.org/en/2012/2012scc47/2012scc47.html)

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October 5, 2012 – As a coalition of interveners, we are shocked and dismayed at today’s ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada that says that even the responsible use of a condom does not protect a person living with HIV from rampant prosecution. The Court’s judgments in R. v. Mabior and R. v. D.C., two cases relating to the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure, are a cold endorsement of AIDS-phobia. They will stand as an impediment to public health and prevention, and add even more fuel to stigma, misinformation and fear. And they place Canada once again in shameful opposition to standards set out by international human rights bodies, UNAIDS and the Global Commission on HIV and the Law.

In its decisions, the Court purports to uphold its own 1998 decision standard that a “significant risk” of HIV transmission is required in order to trigger the legal duty to disclose. But this is an illusory limit to the criminal law. It blatantly ignores solid science and opens the door to convictions for non-disclosure even where the risk of transmission is negligible, approaching zero. Even in 1998, when there was less science quantifying the small risks of HIV transmission than there is today and less effective treatment for HIV, the Supreme Court had ruled that condom-use might sufficiently reduce the risk below “significant” for the purpose of the criminal law. Yet now, 14 years later, despite significant advances in scientific knowledge, the Supreme Court decides condoms are not enough. In practice, today’s ruling means that people risk being criminally prosecuted even in cases where they exercised responsibility and took precautions, such as using condoms – which are 100% effective when used properly.

Adding to continued injustice, the Court’s actions will seriously undermine public health efforts. Criminalizing HIV non-disclosure in this way creates another disincentive to getting an HIV test and imposes a chill on what people can disclose to health professionals and support workers. People living with HIV need more health and social supports; they don’t need the constant threat of criminal accusations and possible imprisonment hanging over their heads. Similarly, people not living with HIV need to be empowered to accept responsibility for their own health, and not proceed under a false sense of security that the criminal law will protect them from infection. In short, the Court’s actions will have deleterious effects not only on the lives and health of people living with HIV, but on all of us, through fostering a climate of fear and recrimination.

While we welcome the Court’s acquittal of D.C. – an acknowledgement of at least one miscarriage of justice – the onus must now fall to those protecting the health and defending the dignity of people living with HIV. We also call on Crown prosecutors to use their discretion and refuse to be complicit in injustice just because the Court gave them the power to do so. It is not in the public interest to prosecute people living with HIV where condoms have been used or where a person has a low or undetectable viral load. Prosecutions in such cases will only perpetuate misinformation, pander to prejudice and undermine efforts at HIV prevention and treatment.

Signed, the interveners:

Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network

HIV/AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario (HALCO)

Coalition des organismes communautaires québécois de lutte contre le sida (COCQ-SIDA)

Positive Living Society of British Columbia (Positive Living BC)

Canadian AIDS Society (CAS)

Toronto People with AIDS Foundation (PWA)

Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention (Black Cap)

Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network (CAAN)

Crim-SCC-2012Oct5-CoalitionStatement-Eng

Ottawa, September 11, 2012 — Beginning at 12:01 a.m. EDT today, citizens of St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines (St. Vincent), Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland now require a visa to travel to Canada, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney announced.

For the first 48 hours, or until 11:59 p.m. September 12, 2012, citizens of these countries who are in transit to Canada at the time the visa requirement takes effect will be able to receive a Temporary Resident Permit on arrival in Canada, free of charge, if they are not otherwise inadmissible to Canada.

“We continue to welcome genuine visitors to Canada,” said Minister Kenney. “These changes are necessary to protect the integrity of Canada’s fair and generous immigration system by helping us to reduce an unacceptably high number of immigration violations.”

These changes will allow Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and its partners to ensure that those seeking to visit Canada intend to return to their country of origin, rather than overstaying or committing other immigration violations.

A key reason why the government has imposed visa requirements on St. Lucia and St. Vincent is unreliable travel documents. In particular, criminals from these countries can legally change their names and acquire new passports. In some instances, people who were removed from Canada as security risks later returned using different passports. In the case of Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland, human trafficking, especially of minors, and fraudulent documents are of significant concern.

There has also been an unacceptably high number of asylum claims from St. Lucia and St. Vincent, with about one and a half percent and three percent of the population of these countries making asylum claims in Canada over the past five years. The African country that has the highest immigration violation rate is Namibia, with eighty-one percent in 2011. Seventy-one percent of travellers from Namibia made asylum claims in 2011.

“These changes are necessary because all the countries concerned have an immigration violation rate of over thirty percent, well above the level we deem acceptable for countries benefiting from a visa exemption,” said Minister Kenney.

Canada regularly reviews its visa requirements toward other countries. Countries are aware that they have a responsibility to satisfy certain conditions to receive a visa exemption.

This visa policy change means that nationals from St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland who want to travel to Canada will first need to apply for a visitor visa and meet the requirements to receive one.

It is up to the applicants to satisfy visa officers that their visit to Canada is temporary; they will not overstay their authorized stay; they have enough money to cover their stay; they are in good health; they do not have a criminal record; and they are not a security risk to Canadians. These requirements are the same for anyone who wants to visit Canada.

Applicants from St. Lucia and St. Vincent can now submit their applications by mail or in person to the Canadian visa office in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Applications will be accepted by the visa office in Pretoria, South Africa, for those from Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland. In the months ahead travellers to Canada will be able to apply online for all temporary visas.

This decision will further strengthen the immigration and asylum systems, and it complements the measures the government is implementing this year under the Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act, which recently received Royal Assent.

“The Government of Canada remains committed to protecting the integrity of our immigration system and welcoming bona fide visitors from around the world.”

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/releases/2012/2012-09-11.asp#.UFIp8MwkmEI.email

The 21^st Annual Canadian Association of HIV/AIDS Research (CAHR) Conference was held on April 19 – 22, 2012 at the Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth hotel in Montreal, Quebec. The theme of this year’s Conference was “”A Turning Point in the Fight against HIV: Meeting New Challenges”.

After 30 years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, recent years bring new breakthrough in the efficacy of anti-retroviral therapies in both prolonging lives as well as advancing prevention. It also poses increasing challenges for our communities to focus on more holistic strategies to address issues related to HIV and aging, long term drug toxicities, and the risks of complacency in engaging affected and at risk communities in effective prevention, support and anti-stigma initiatives.

 At the conference, CAAT research team members Ciro Bisignano and Kenneth Poon presented a poster titled “Grassroots to HIV Champions: Meaningful Engagement of PHA in Community-based Action Research”. They engaged delegates on the importance of developing polices and infrastructures that facilitate equitable PHAs participation in community-campus research partnerships.  In addition, medical student Jennifer Tran presented a poster on the national survey on knowledge and attitudes of designated medical practitioners (DMP) that CAAT collaborated on developing.

Link to poster: http://www.hivimmigration.ca/?attachment_id=1172

 CAAT research team members Kenneth Poon (L) and Ciro Bisignano (R) stand next to CAAT’s poster at CAHR 2012 Montreal, Quebec