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A short summary of the Sixteenth World AIDS Conference, Toronto:
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“We haven’t been angry enough,” concluded KAIROS partner Georgine Kengne Djeutane at the end of her presentation to an ecumenical gathering prior to the XVI International AIDS Conference. Georgine, Regional Secretary for the World Student Christian Federation in Africa, was referring specifically to the intolerable outflow of debt service payments to wealthy creditors from Africa. In fact each year payments on debts that are manifestly illegitimate exceed the total amount needed to provide treatment, care and support for all Africans affected by HIV and AIDS.
Indeed, the callous refusal of the Canadian government to make new commitments to fight the AIDS pandemic aroused many angry words throughout the week that 30,000 people gathered in Toronto for the AIDS Conference.
As the week unfolded there were more reasons for expressing moral outrage.
It was bad enough that Prime Minister Stephen Harper declined to attend the opening ceremonies.
To make matters worse, a news conference where his Ministers of Health and of International Cooperation were to announce new Canadian contributions to fighting the pandemic was abruptly cancelled at the last minute. Many expected the announcement to be rescheduled for later in the week. But it never happened.
No new Canadian government commitments have as yet been announced despite repeated pleas by church and civil society leaders for more government action.
The inadequacy of the Harper government’s response can be measured against the six concrete demands contained in an April 26 letter to the Prime Minister from 20 Canadian church leaders:
- Cancel 100% of the bilateral and multilateral debts owed
by countries with high HIV rates:
There was no response to this request. In fact the situation has only grown worse with the revelation that international creditors collected US$23.4 billion in debt service from sub-Saharan Africa in 2005, almost three times as much as the shortfall of funding for AIDS programs in 2006 and 2007.
- A Canadian initiative to untie debt remission from IMF and
World Bank conditions involving privatization of health care services,
limits on hiring of health care workers and user fees for public
services.
There was no response to this request. Canada has done nothing to change IMF policies despite an incident in which the IMF prevented Zambia’s from hiring additional health care workers despite the willingness of the Canadian government to pay their salaries over a period of five years.
- A Canadian contribution of 5% of the funds needed for the
Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and announcement
of a timetable for increasing Canada’s Official Development
Assistance to 0.7% of Gross national Income.
There was no response to this request despite the fact that it would have cost Canada very little, only C$60 million, to top up the C$250 million already pledged to the Global Fund in order to reach the 5% target for 2006-07.
- Amendments to Canada’s pharmaceutical laws to remove
disincentives for exporting less expensive medicines to countries
without pharmaceutical production capabilities.
On this issue alone there was some hint of progress when Health Minister Tony Clement admitted that Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime “isn’t working” and pledged to seek advice on how to change the law. In the two years after its passage into law not a single low-cost pill has been shipped from Canada. The law’s review will be a slow process whose outcome is very uncertain.
- A commitment to give priority to women and children in all
efforts to address HIVand AIDS.
Although Madame Verner, the Minister for International Cooperation, reiterated CIDA’s policies supporting gender equality and for the improvement of women’s health, there were no new initiatives announced at the International AIDS Conference.
- Measures to ensure health care for all people in Canada
with HIV, including immigrants and refugees.
There was no response to this request beyond a promise to forward a copy of the church leaders’ letter to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.
Indeed, the Prime Minister never even replied to the church leaders’ letter. Instead he just referred it to the Canadian International Development Agency, whose reply simply catalogued existing Canadian initiatives-- all of which were approved by the preceding Liberal government.
While Bill and Melinda Gates’ US$500 million donation to the Global Fund got a lot of publicity, as did other acts of private philanthropy, there was too little attention to the brave African, Asian and Latin American voices at the Conference. They decried how all the charity directed their way was insignificant when compared to the ongoing looting of their material and human resources through unfair trade rules, collection of interest payments on illegitimate debts, and the poaching of health care workers from low-income countries without any recompense for their training.
The President-elect of the International AIDS Society, Vancouver Doctor Julio Montaner, likened the failure of political leaders to respond adequately to the pandemic to genocide. Indeed it is. This should makes us angry. Very angry.
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