Harper steps up attacks on HIV/AIDS solutions while preaching "unity of purpose"

Vaccine facility mystery deeps by the day
Silence from Quebec ramps up rumour mill

There comes a point, and that point is now, when rumours can be accepted as fact. There is no mystery. Advancing HIV/AIDS awareness, education, prevention, treatment and now hope for a vaccine is not part of the PM's conservative idea of a caring social agenda.

Since becoming Prime Minister, Stephen Harper has tried to shut, by every means possible, the door of Insite, Vancouver's globally lauded safe injection facility for drug addicts in the Downtown Eastside. If successful, and he won't be because the law is against him, the closure of Insite would have negative and devasting implications to the spread of HIV.

A better man for it

(The following is an edited written version of the keynote speech delivered by Dave Brindle at the Canadian AIDS Society World AIDS Day Gala - A red tie affair - December 1, 2009, Ottawa, ON)

My name is Dave Brindle, and I’m here tonight to recruit you. If those words sound familiar, they should. The anniversary of the assassination of gay civil rights leader Harvey Milk was five days ago. Those were his words, as were: "come out." Simple, powerful words.

Harvey Milk did not live to see the onset of the HIV/AIDS horror that killed the thousands and thousands of too-young gay men - whose lives he championed, and forever changed - I am here before you tonight to give his words re-newed emphasis. I think we need to remind ourselves of how effective the simplicity of those words can be in bringing about monumental change, if we are to change the stigma of HIV/AIDS.