Justice committee  I would agree that we need to increase the access to testing but part of the drive to have anonymous testing and rapid testing is because of the stigma and criminalization part of it. As I stated in my remarks, it should be like a diabetes test or a cholesterol test. We're not bl

Justice committee  From a public health standpoint, there are quite a lot of regulations that are at the disposal of public health officials in each province and territory that will allow public health to put sanctions on people who are knowingly spreading communicable disease. TB is probably the m

Justice committee  If you're using drugs, this non-disclosure thing is pretty low on your priority list. We're trying to give people the message that this is really dangerous. You should not be exposing people to HIV because of criminalization. I mean, in that situation, we're dealing with people

Justice committee  I think it would have an impact. Again, it's very difficult to empirically measure people's decisions around this and how they internalize and understand the criminal risk they face. I think the undetectable equals no transmission is an extremely important message to get out to p

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  It's fear and stigma. There's still so much stigma around HIV. I always argue you can't destigmatize something that's criminalized, whether it's drugs or this kind of issue. We're talking of two totally different ends of the spectrum. If our goal is to destigmatize HIV, how can y

Justice committee  HIV is transmitted when people expose their partners to the virus. We get at that by educating people. We want to encourage people to get tested and to be up front with their partners. I've probably told hundreds of people that their first HIV test is positive. Part of our conve

Justice committee  Hello from Vancouver. It's a pleasure to be asked to address the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights as you consider criminalization of HIV non-disclosure. This is a very important issue that has public health implications that go far beyond the individuals who have