Justice committee  There have been very few, and I'd say there are very few in the world. That's because, to go back to what Alex said, this notion of a person living with HIV intentionally trying to infect other people is actually something of an urban myth. There may be the occasional isolated ca

Justice committee  I think that's a really great question. Probably multiple factors are at play that explain what you have observed. The first thing that I would note, if you look at the trends and patterns document that I shared with you, in the immediate aftermath of the Mabior decision, becaus

Justice committee  We couldn't point to one model jurisdiction. I think there are a few where there are good features we could learn from and adapt to the Canadian context. The U.K., specifically England and Wales, is the first jurisdiction to have adopted a guidance for its prosecutors. It has be

Justice committee  I don't think that's true. I think it depends on where you are, to go back to your point about rural and remote communities. The reality is that even if you do have access to anonymous testing, if you test positive, once you want to get connected to treatment, your anonymity will

Justice committee  If you want to oust the use of sexual assault provisions, then addressing how fraud has been interpreted in the assault provision in section 265 is a way to do that, as Professor Kirkup has mentioned. That's an important objective. However, think about, as has also been mentioned

Justice committee  There are pros and cons to different approaches, so we should look at that carefully.

Justice committee  Do you mean the low levels of knowledge?

Justice committee  Yes. As I think I noted, becoming exposed to the risk of prosecution, even for engaging in things that pose no or a negligible risk of transmission to a sexual partner, is a disincentive to finding out your HIV status. Frankly, when I speak to people, I tell them to seek anonymou

Justice committee  —some of which are unfair, and to divulge as little information as possible to the testing provider, which is not really good from a public health perspective if you're shutting down conversation—

Justice committee  Our public health objectives are running into conflict with the overly broad use of criminal law and, frankly, I think the public health objective is the thing that ought to take precedence here. When the criminal law does more harm than good, let's go with the things that we kno

Justice committee  I would just like to note that the Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization has actually convened an initial think tank to look at different options for Criminal Code reform. We've made a request to the justice department to meet with them to look at different options and

Justice committee  Yes. I think it's a good question. Let me draw your attention to the guidance that UNAIDS, the joint UN program on HIV/AIDS, put out in 2013 that went through, in fairly exhaustive detail, the ethical, medical and legal considerations about the use of the criminal law. I think i

Justice committee  Approximately.

Justice committee  I can't tell you exactly how Department of Justice Canada came up with those numbers. I can tell you that we track every charge or investigation that we're aware of across the country, either by talking to people who are themselves the subject of the prosecution or their defence

Justice committee  Yes. Those would be post-Cuerrier decisions, so cases that are post the Cuerrier decision from the Supreme Court of Canada, and it may be that Justice was only referring to reported cases where there's a reported decision in the database.