Health committee  Great. First off, I'd like to thank the Standing Committee on Health for the invitation to speak here today, and also for dedicating the resources of the committee to this study, which I think is pretty unprecedented in Canada. It's a real sign of progress in society, as well as

Health committee  I think there's one in Vancouver.

Health committee  That's a great question. Generally when I think about advances in testing and how we can harness new approaches, they fall into two camps for me. One is around ways of streamlining access to existing testing, such as, for example, the program we have with Internet-based testing

Health committee  I can't remember.

Health committee  No, there isn't, to my knowledge. My understanding of the decision to go to one year was not so much that it was.... It was based on science in general, in the sense that the five years was too long, but there was a parameter set that it shouldn't be less than a year. I do think

Health committee  I don't have any evidence to back that up. I've heard anecdotal evidence or people saying that's a concern, but in terms of actual data, I don't know that. I think what's important when it comes to testing is to make sure that we have options where people can get anonymous test

Health committee  Anonymous testing is available in most places in Canada, as far as I know. I can't say for certain it's in every province, but historically it's been one of the first forms of testing that was introduced with HIV testing.

Health committee  I certainly don't support the criminalization of the non-disclosure of HIV. I think that largely has to do with stigma and is really unwarranted. Personally, I think there are mechanisms under public health law to deal with cases when someone is potentially transmitting HIV, ei

Health committee  To your question, I think I would add that while criminalization of HIV non-disclosure obviously has profound implications for the individuals who are concerned, I think it has a much greater negative impact on society around perpetuation of HIV stigma. Every case gets reported i

Health committee  I certainly know of some community organizations or groups that are offering mental health services for sexual and gender minority people, so in that respect there are sort of tailored programs that are really acknowledging that cultural safety context or trauma people might have

Health committee  Sure. I'll start the comments. I fully agree. The research has been quite clear that comprehensive sexual education that talks about all the nuances of gender identity and other aspects of sex and mental health is a benefit both to youth who are sexual, and gender minorities and

Health committee  I'm not aware of all the options around that. For example, I know there's been funding for SIECCAN to develop the comprehensive sexual health education guidelines that are being reviewed. I think there are ways the federal government is seeking that. I think it's important that k

Health committee  The service that we have is called GetCheckedOnline, which is an online testing service.

Health committee  As you can imagine, the testing service has to be integrated within labs. People have to submit specimens, so it is geographically bound, but it is a model that potentially could be used elsewhere. We have a CIHR research grant right now that's looking at the feasibility of the m

Health committee  David, either you or I can address this.