Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, Winstone Zulu, a courageous Zambian living with AIDS, brought his story to Parliament Hill. Each of Winstone's brothers contracted TB. HIV positive and denied access to medications, one after the other his brothers died.
Forty-two million people in the world are living with HIV-AIDS, 70% in sub-Saharan Africa. Twenty million Africans have died from AIDS, leaving 14 million orphans behind.
Winstone Zulu pleaded with Canadians to implement the foreign affairs committee's recommendation for this government to pay its proportional share of the global fund to fight HIV-AIDS, TB and malaria by tripling our contribution.
It is regrettable in the extreme that the Prime Minister failed to use the occasion of this week's UN special session to measure progress in the AIDS battle to announce that Canada will meet its obligations. Nor did the Prime Minister commit to changing our laws to enable life-saving generic drugs to be exported to where they are desperately needed.
I urge this government today to end the delay and save Winstone Zulu's African brothers and sisters.