Photo by Jill Kitchener

Imagine 60,000 Band-Aids stuck together in small wagon-wheel patterns, draped over a mannequin in an art gallery. Now, imagine a person wearing this cloak in the middle of a downtown street, who if feeling confrontational, sticks Band-Aids on passersby.

Hamilton-based artist Andrew McPhail’s installation and performance all my little failures explores obsession, humour and disease. Most recently presented at the Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto, his Band-Aid cloak was included as part of Veiled, a group show that examined the act of covering the body.

“In a gallery there’s a level of distancing, you know how you are supposed to respond,” says McPhail. “When you are confronted on the street wearing it, you don’t have any context for it. I get a lot of very different kinds of reactions.”

McPhail says strangers often mistake him for a woman because of his diminutive height, but his hairy legs draw suspicion. “I don’t speak when I am wearing it. No voice cues,” he says. “This unbalances people.”

For the past four years, McPhail has purchased all his Band-Aids at the local drugstore. Cashiers rarely question why he requires so many peel-and-stick patches; they just keep replenishing stock. “Band-Aids are about healing and also covering up, covering the wound,” he says. “Covering it ineffectively. People use ‘Band-Aid solution’ for the short term, for a solution that doesn’t really solve anything.”

McPhail’s obsessive assemblage of first-aid staples creates an almost flesh-like veil. Part manifestation, part conversation, all of my little failures is also a point of entry into the artist’s struggle with HIV, which he’s been living with since 1993.

“It’s so overwhelmingly sad that it’s funny, I thought,” he says. “Without seeing the piece in action it’s harder. Just seeing it as an artifact it’s hard to get the weird humour of it.”

Textile Museum of Canada curator Sarah Quinton views the piece as a balance of humours, straddling both the nature of veiling and unveiling.

“The flesh-like physicality of the Band-Aids suggests matters of healing, touch, protection and futility,” says Quinton. “The labour-intensive patchwork of this veil or shroud, consumed with precious and limited time, forms a protective space for the wearer. The lacy perforations, however, render it permeable to the outside world, displaying the impossibility of separating public and private realities.”

When he’s not stringing Band-Aids together, McPhail’s working on Cry Baby, a piece made of over 2,000 hand-stitched Kleenex, inspired by when he was on a flight and the passenger beside him died of a heart attack. McPhail folded an airplane out of snot-rags he wet with artificial tears to suspend over a pile of fluffy tissues on the gallery floor.

“It’s about the overwhelming nature of grief,” he says. “There is the flip side to dealing with really overwhelming emotions without blame or self-shame, they are so hard to face. If it takes 60,000 Band-Aids, I’ll keep it together.”

Apo-TriAvir, the generic HIV/AIDS drug. A Canadian law making its export easier is likely finished in parliament. Image courtesy Apotex.

In March, Canada came improbably close to establishing a system to deliver drugs cheaply and quickly to poorer countries. In a vote of 172 to 111, the House of Commons passed Bill C-393, which would have streamlined Canada’s Access to Medicine Regime, a program to provide low-cost generic drugs to the global south. It wasn’t to be: the senate stalled, waiting for the vote of non-confidence that precipitated a spring election. That vote came four days later, effectively trashing the bill.

CAMR allows generic drugmakers to export cheaper versions of brand-name drugs to developing countries, without needing the permission of the patent-holders. “We have tremendous capacity to help address a particular need,” says Richard Elliott, executive director at the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. But CAMR’s cumbersome red tape kept manufacturers away. Says Elliott: “To leave in place a regime that is not working would be harming millions of people who need access to medicines.”

The program had only been used once since it was introduced in 2005. In 2007, Apotex, the largest Canadian-owned generic drug company, shipped enough HIV medication, Apo-TriAvir, to treat 21,000 patients in Rwanda [PDF]. Apotex says the final shipment went out in 2008. “We’re not likely to repeat the process under the current regime,” says Bruce Clark, Apotex’s senior vice-president of scientific and regulatory affairs. “It’s not just our decision, it’s a practical reality that no second country has made a request under the regime because it’s so complicated.” Bill C-393 would have simplified that process, but its future looks doubtful.

When C-393 passed in the House of Commons, it was supported by 26 Conservative MPs; 25 of those were re-elected, but the bill’s prospects in the new Conservative-dominated parliament look dim. “We saw what Harper did in the senate with the bill,” Elliott says.

On May 5, Elliott discussed CAMR’s future with other major advocacy groups. They’ve decided it’s not time to give up, but it will take time to re-assess the political climate before drafting some next steps. “The legal landscape is more challenging now than before,” he says. “But it’s worth trying to gather some intelligence and make a more informed assessment as to what the prospects might be before moving forward.”

Even with such slight optimism, Elliott expects the earliest the bill could be re-introduced—if at all—would be this fall.

Tamara Dawit. Photo by Nabil Shash.

Tamara Dawit co-founded the 411 Initiative for Change, a non-profit public education program, to tackle the problem of community disengagement among young Canadians. Through 411 she produces and tours 90-minute school assemblies on social issues such as human rights, HIV/AIDS, and girls’ empowerment to encourage students to learn about and get active in their communities.

Unlike some adults who bemoan the apathy of “kids these days” and put the blame on trash TV, rap music, and social media, Dawit embraces pop culture as the spoonful of sugar to make her educational message go down. Her assemblies are a mash-up of TV talk show, newsy video clips, and musical performances featuring an impressive roster of artists and personalities (past tours have included the likes of K’naan, Eternia, Anita Majumdar, and Masia One). But Dawit’s successful formula is no fluke, but a method she says she learned “through trial and error.”

As one of only four black students at her Ottawa-area high school, Dawit, now 30, found herself bullied because of her Ethiopian heritage. “I just felt that people were really ignorant about me—who I was and where I was from,” she explains. She decided to put together a Black History Month assembly to set the record straight. That first year featured a local academic and an African drummer. The show bombed—so she went back to the drawing board.

The following year, she packaged her message in contemporary music and dance, and brought in younger speakers. Fourteen years and 400,000 students later, it’s still the basic model she says works best to create an engaging, safe space for students to learn some tough messages. In fact, Dawit was reminded of how powerful the experience remains for audiences just last month during the girls’ rights tour, when a young woman stood up and confessed to the group that she was thinking of killing herself because she could no longer deal with bullying from her classmates.

Admissions like this girl’s might not be the norm, but they’re far from rare and, most importantly, they spark dialogue and promote understanding between youth. In the end, Dawit says, “those are the things that lead to change.”

Pierre Trudeau. Bill C-150, passed by his government on May 15, 1969, ushered in a new era of human rights in Canada.

Tomorrow, let’s take a moment to reflect on the 42nd anniversary of the passing of Bill C-150, the omnibus bill that decriminalized abortion, contraception and homosexuality. The rights that Canadians have because of this historic bill are crucial to remember as those same rights come under attack elsewhere: on Wednesday, Indiana became the first state in the U.S. to cut public funding to Planned Parenthood. The same day in Uganda, gay people came close to facing the death penalty.

On May 14, 1969, The Criminal Law Amendment Act formed the legal foundations for the Canadian gay rights movement, and for Henry Morgentaler to perform abortions against — and eventually according to — the law. But it didn’t reduce discrimination, or grant women and members of the LGBTQ community full rights under the charter. Forty-two years later, how much has changed?

Abortion and contraception then:

In the 1950s, a family of five was considered small, explained former nurse Lucie Pepin in her speech commemorating the 30th anniversary of Bill C-150. Many women in rural communities gave birth to their children at home. When complications occurred during birth, the mother was rushed to hospital. If it was too late for a cesarian, her doctor had a decision to make:

“Which to save — the baby or the mother? The Church was clear: save the baby. The Church was clear on many points — women sinned if they refused sexual relations with their husbands or any other form of contraception. The State was also clear. Contraception was illegal and so was abortion.”

Women had no choice in the matter, and neither did their doctors. But Bill C-150 at least changed the latter. The legislation decreed abortion was permissible if a committee of three doctors felt the pregnancy endangered the mental, emotional or physical well-being of the mother. Regard was not given just yet to women’s charter rights to life, liberty and security of the person.

Enter Henry Morgentaler. In 1969, armed with decisive arguments in favour of a woman’s right to an abortion within the first three months of pregnancy, the doctor began performing the procedure illegally in his Montreal clinic. An exchange in 1970 between the adamant doctor and a furious caller on CBC Radio highlighted the fundamental disagreement between the doctor and his critics about when life begins.

Now:

The debate hasn’t progressed. It has degenerated into little more than a shouting match between so-called “pro-life” and “pro-choice” advocates who still can’t agree on when life begins, or whose rights win out: those of the mother or those of the unborn fetus. And recently the Canadian debate has shifted for the worse.

In Indiana, the governor was quite happy to openly chop away at Planned Parenthood’s $2 million in public funding. Meanwhile, in Canada, subtler shifts are taking place. During the election, Tory MP Brad Trost bragged that the Conservative government had successfully cut funding to Planned Parenthood. Stephen Harper quickly denied the comments, saying he would not re-open the abortion debate as long as he is Prime Minister. However, the International Planned Parenthood Federation has been waiting for 18 months to hear whether their funding from the Canadian government will be renewed. During the election, women’s rights groups foreshadowed the Conservatives’ indecision on the matter warning Canadians that Harper would be under pressure from his caucus to re-open the debate. With a Conservative majority now in government, that pressure is sure to grow.

Homosexuality then:

149 Members of Parliament agreed with Trudeau and 55 did not after he famously said “there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” According to his omnibus bill, acts of homosexual sex committed in private between consenting adults would no longer be prosecuted. But gay sex between people younger than 21 was still illegal.

A Gallup Poll at the time that asked Canadians whether they thought homosexual sex should be legal or illegal found 42 percent in favour of decriminalization and 41 percent against. Homosexuality was openly discussed as an “illness” that ought to be cured. Progressive Conservative Justice Critic Eldon Woolliams voted in favour of Trudeau’s bill so that gays could have the equal opportunity to receive treatment. On February 2, 1969, he said casually on CBC television:

“I don’t think (homosexuality) should ever be put in the criminal code. I think it should be taken out. It should be done in a medical way so that these people could be sent to centres if we feel as citizens who oppose the feeling of this illness and this homosexuality so they could be rehabilitated.”

Woolliams appeared to sincerely (and incorrectly) believe that gay sex was a mere tendency based on environmental factors, and that the “pressure” of these factors could be “relieved.”

Before Bill C-150 was passed, “incurable” homosexual George Klippert was convicted of “gross indecency.” He was sentenced to preventative detention. In 1967, the Supreme Court upheld the decision.

Now:

Today the Ugandaan Parliament debated a bill that aimed to punish “aggravated homosexuality” by increasing jail sentences from 14 years to life. Until yesterday, the bill also proposed the death penalty for gays. The main motivation behind the legislation was preventing the spread of HIV and AIDS.

We would like to think that Canada is 40 years ahead of Uganda, but we still impose discriminatory policies to prevent the spread of what used to be known as “the gay cancer” — HIV/AIDS.

The policy of the Canadian Blood Services is to ban any man who has had sex with another man since 1977 from giving blood for the rest of his life. The organization asserts that it is arms-length enough from the government to uphold the ban without fear of violating Charter rights. The CBS also discriminates based on action rather than sexuality — a gay man who hasn’t had sex is welcome to give blood. A third argument holds the least strength: though HIV/AIDS testing has advanced over the years, the possibility of a false negative still exists.

However, the policy is inherently discriminatory because it assumes any man who has sex with another man carries a high possibility of illness despite other factors such as relationship status, use of condoms, and differing risk factors based on oral versus anal sex. The CBS, which is regulated by Health Canada, maintains its policy based on outdated science. To their credit, the organization has offered a grant of $500,000 to any researcher(s) who can find a safe way to allow “MSM” men to safely give blood. No researchers have applied for the grant.

The lifetime ban is outdated, as is the recommended deferral period of 10 years, which the U.K. recently implemented. Australia, Sweden and Japan currently have deferral periods of one year. Researchers for the Canadian Medical Association Journal have recommended a one-year deferral policy for MSM donors in stable, monogamous relationships.

We’ve progressed, but we’re not perfect. And there’s a real risk of losing what we have. On May 14, let’s be grateful to the activists that pushed the LGBTQ and women’s rights movements forward.

Compiled by Dylan C. Robertson & Victoria Salvas

This election means death. Not only have Ottawa scrums, filibusters, and drawn-out committees been killed, pieces of legislation making their way through parliament have all met a harsh end as politicians take to the campaign trail.

Before a bill becomes law, it is introduced in either the House of Commons or the Senate. Subsequently the bill goes through readings where it is introduced, given a number code and debated. It can be read again, amended then passed, from the House to the Senate but only becomes law if it is given Royal Assent by the Governor General.

But bills are stopped in their tracks when an election is called. We tracked down the people who pioneered five of the most important bills that died on the order paper when the writ dropped. We asked what they thought of the abrupt death of their projects and if they’ll attempt rebooting them.

While government bills (titled C- with a number under 201) can be reintroduced at an advanced phase with the consent of the House, private members’s bills and motions are entered in a lottery to determine their Order of Precedence, meaning the order in which they can be re-introduced. Only 30 members per session have their motions considered, although the list is replenished if all motions are dealt with.

Here’s a look at the five bills that may or may not rise again:

1. Cheaper HIV Drugs:

Bill C-393, An Act to amend the Patent Act (drugs for international humanitarian purposes), was introduced by then NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis in May 2009. After she left to run for mayor of Winnipeg, the bill was adopted by another NDP MP, Paul Dewar.

The bill, which came to be known as “the AIDS drug bill” would’ve allowed generic drug makers to supply their products to developing countries, so they could fight diseases like tuberculosis and malaria, and help the world’s 15 million AIDS victims. Apotex Inc. had promised to make much-needed antiretrovirals for children, should the legislaiton pass. The bill, which was passed earlier this month by the House of Commons, was sabotaged by its review committee and then by the Conservatives’s attempt to effectively whip the senate, feeling it would hinder Big Pharma.

“It’s pretty outrageous,” said Richard Elliott, executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. “This bill had a lot of potential, and we pushed really hard to get it to pass. We had a lot of support from MPs in all parties.”

Dewar said he plans to reintroduce the bill. “We have to abolish the senate though, first,” he laughed. “That’s my plan. Well I’m just joking… but not really.” Dewar noted the bill was lucky to be successfully transferred after Wasylycia-Leis’s leave, as it is not an automatic process. “It was revived when actual co-operation broke out in the House of Commons,” he said. “Through unanimous consent, I was able to pick the bill up. “I’m ready, able, and willing to carry it forward after the election,” said Dewar, who hopes it ranks high in the order or precedence. “There’s so much public support for it. I don’t think they could get away with this again.”

2. Civilizing parliament:

Private Member’s Motion M-517 proposed a reform of Question Period. Conservative MP Michael Chong’s pet project aimed to civilize parliament’s most savage — and ironically unproductive — 45 minutes each sitting day.

The motion sought to strengthen how much discipline a speaker can give, lengthen the alloted time for each question and answer, and aimed at “examining the convention that the minister questioned need not respond.”

“Parliament needs to be reformed and I think the reform of parliament should begin with the reform of Question Period,” said Chong. If passed, the motion would have also stipulated who should be asked questions, most notably dedicating Wednesday exclusively for questions to the Prime Minister, and requiring ministers be present for two of the other four days. Chong noted that he was listed in the Order of Precedence for the first time in six years, and said he would re-table his motion in the rare chance he was listed for the next session. “I’m disappointed that the committee didn’t have a chance to deal with it before the election.”

Chong explained that while many members add motions and bills to the order paper solely to generate publicity for an issue, he fully intends to enact this reform. “I’ll continue to work on this issue through whatever mechanisms are available to me after the election,” said Chong. “Because this problem isn’t going away and I think Canadians want it to be addressed.”

3. Protecting trans rights:

Bill C-389, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code (gender identity and gender expression), was a private member’s bill sponsored by NDP MP Bill Siksay. Introduced in early 2009, the legislation would have make it illegal to discriminate based on gender identity, and aimed to protect transgender individuals by amending the Human Rights Act.

These amendments would have also been made to the Criminal Code, rendering these acts of discrimination hate crimes. The House passed the bill in February, against Stephen Harper’s wishes. However, the fact that it received “unanimous support from the Bloc, several Conservatives, and the Liberals bodes well for the next parliament” says Siksay. The MP is confident in the future of the bill; passing it again will demonstrate the governments’ “commitment to human rights.”

4. Improving First Nations’ water:

Bill S-11 Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act, was introduced in May 2010 and would have developed federal regulations for governing water provision, disposal and quality standards in First Nations communities.

An issue that has received much attention recently is the issue of providing First Nations reserves with safe drinking water. An assessment from 2001-2001 found that three quarters of the drinking water systems in First Nations communities were at risk.

Despite the dire situation on many reserves, many First Nations leaders criticized the bill, feeling they were left out of the creating of the legislation and not offered funding to get it off the ground. The Assembly of First Nations felt that the bill presented lofty goals but sparse plans for financial investment and support, which in the long run, could leave reserves in worse condition.

5. Copyright reform:

Bill C-32, An Act to amend the Copyright Act, was the third attempt at copyright reform killed by an election call, dragging on a 14-year effort.

The bill sparked controversy for attempting to criminalize the use and promotion of software that circumvents digital locks, generating high-profile criticism, a minister’s comment that critics were “radical extremists,” and an indutry-led astroturfing campaign. But the bill also aimed at tackling online piracy, and making it legal to transfer music from CDs to iPods.

MP Tony Clement, who introduced the bill as Minister of Industry, told us he plans to reintroduce the bill if re-elected. “It’s just another example of important legislation that has now been discontinued because of the opposition parties passing a motion of non-confidence,” said Clement. “This is a very necessary piece of legislation to help regularize certain habits of consumers and also protect artists from wealth-destroying pirates. “I’m hoping that if we get a majority government, we can actually concentrate on the issues like C-32 and privacy protection and other aspects of the digital economy.”

Illustration by Dave Donald.

Dear Progressive Detective: I’m an HIV-positive Canadian, and I’ve heard troubling stories about people being criminally charged for transmitting the disease. Can that happen here? What are my rights and responsibilities under Canadian law?

Under Canadian law, criminal charges can be laid if an individual does not disclose his or her HIV-positive status prior to engaging in certain activities, including sharing needles. While there are no specific laws regarding HIV transmission, charges of criminal negligence causing bodily harm, aggravated assault, and even murder have been laid. This isn’t happening only in Canada, but many say the number of HIV-related criminal cases here is rising, and has been since 2000.

Of more than 60 cases in the past decade, however, Johnson Aziga’s first-degree murder trial has easily garnered the most attention. Six years after the Ontario man’s 2003 arrest, the jury’s guilty verdict made history as the first murder conviction in a criminal case involving HIV transmission. Aziga had infected seven women with HIV; two died of AIDS-related lymphoma during the trial. Additionally, Aziga was guilty of 10 counts of aggravated assault, prompting Crown prosecutors to proceed with a dangerous-offender application. Defence lawyers are currently appealing the application, and Aziga won’t be sentenced until it’s resolved sometime this spring.

In the meantime, groups such as UNAIDS and the Ontario Working Group on Criminal Law and HIV Exposure are worried. Both are currently assessing whether criminalization, in the long run, will achieve criminal justice and prevent the transmission of HIV—or if it will undermine human rights and public health. If Canada starts using criminal law as a blanket solution to HIVrelated sex offences, it may be a slippery, and troubling, slope, say the groups. For instance, HIV-positive women have a 30 percent chance of transmitting the virus to their child during pregnancy, delivery or breastfeeding. Should they face criminal charges?What about women and girls who do not disclose their status in fear of violence or abandonment?

Because of all these factors, UNAIDS proposes that criminal law only be applied to cases of intentional transmission. They also suggest that, as an alternative to criminal law, governments further expand programs promoting education, counselling, support, and other proven forms of HIV prevention.

Finally, we suggest subscribing to our RSS feed to ensure you never miss a new article going online, and following us on Twitter or becoming a fan on Facebook for updates, new articles and tasty links.

The cover story this issue is Elizabeth Wright‘s look at Canada’s broken drug approval process. The way that pharmaceuticals in this country get approved for medical use is needlessly secretive, rushed, and inefficient, many experts say, and its dysfunction puts everyone’s health at risk. And with Big Pharma in the driver’s seat—from the doctor’s office to the federal research labs, it’s increasingly clear that a more accountable, transparent, and independent drug approval process is necessary.

Also in this issue: Brad Badelt reports on the mystery of B.C.’s 2010 salmon run, which saw record-breaking numbers of fish returning to west-coast rivers. The fish-farming industry said it proved that Pacific salmon stocks are perfectly healthy and there’s no need to worry. But was last year’s boom a sign of resurgence—or a last gasp? Plus we bring you a special eight-page photo essay by Ian Willms from the dark heart of the tar sands. In Fort Chipewyan, 300 kilometres downstream from the world’s most environmentally destructive project, residents are living—and dying—amidst a skyrocketing cancer rate and deteriorating ecosystem.

And there’s plenty more: Paul McLaughlin interviews Silicone Diaries playwright-performer Nina Arsenault; Jason Brown explains how Canada is losing the global race for geothermal energy; Ellen Russell asks why we can’t have more muscular banking reforms; Lisa Xing sends a postcard from Jeju Island, South Korea, where the last of the pacific “mermaids” live; Dylan C. Robertson explains how the Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement will change our world; Kapil Khatter shows why that “organic farmed fish” you buy may be anything but; Daniel Wilson untangles the right wing’s curious fixation on aboriginal tax exemptions; and Emily Landau sneaks a peek at the next genre-bending project from KENK publisher Pop Sandbox.

PLUS: Christina Palassio on poetry in schools; Navneet Alang on Wikileaks; Jackie Wong on painter Michael Lewis; Flavie Halais on the West Coast’s greenest city; Victoria Salvas on criminalizing HIV-AIDS; Denise Deby on the fight to save Ottawa’s South March Highlands; and reviews of new books by Renee Rodin, Lorna Goodison, David Collier, and David Lester.

This issue also includes debut fiction by Christine Miscione and new poetry by Jim Smith.

AIDS memorial at 519 Church Street Community Centre, Toronto. Photo courtesy of Kenn Chaplin at Flickr.

Although Pride Toronto decided to reschedule its week-long festivities in light of the G20 circus coming to town, the committee for the AIDS Candlelight Vigil, an event associated with Pride Week, decided it would take advantage of the politically charged atmosphere.

We took the opportunity to speak with Kay Roesslein, co-chair of the AIDS Candlelight Vigil planning committee, about the significance of the event, the decision to keep the original date, and what to expect at this year’s event, which is tonight.

Q&A

Natalie Samson: I was hoping you could tell us about the history and background of the event.

Kay Roesslein: This is the 26th vigil and it truly began for honouring, remembering and celebrating. When it began in the 80s there were so many losses, especially in the gay circles, significant numbers were lost. We saw then over the years [the vigil] become impactful in other communities, including in those wherein substance abuse is a challenge, mental health communities, populations from various countries—that would be the slow progression over the years where losses started to impact [these and] other communities. It really was an opportunity to remember significant losses and to make a statement, to talk about awareness and to raise the flag that HIV is impactful and it can effect us all.

Natalie Samson: So it’s very much a political statement.

Kay Roesslein: Absolutely.

Natalie Samson: Has there historically been any kind of political presence at these vigils?

Kay Roesslein: Not as a rule. June Callwood was here one year and was a host…I know Kyle Rae has attended over the years, George Smitherman has. It’s really a community event. We have strived over the years to keep it a community event. We get sponsorship, yes, but it tends to be sponsorship from [not for profit and related organizations like] Casey House, LOFT Community Services, it’s from ACT [AIDS Committee of Toronto], from the Elementary Teachers Federation. But it’s not from big pharmaceuticals—and that’s intentional. The intent is to keep it a community event.

In fact, the planning committee, all the organizers, are representative from different community agencies or are individuals within the community. That way we stay true, we don’t end up with the politics that we see elsewhere, like Pride, for example.

Natalie Samson: Have you seen questionable sponsorship or politics at other vigils?

Kay Roesslein: I can’t cite any personal examples, no. I am aware though that it came up often in conversation when we looked at our programming, especially with the International AIDS vigil we had during the International AIDS Conference at Yonge and Dundas Square. We invited our local politicians to participate and they did. But again, it’s who do you invite and why, and what’s the message behind it—are we still reflecting our community.

I think one interesting area of growth is the increase in diversity. It speaks to how HIV has grown and impacted so many different communities now. Culturally, it’s all over. So what we’ve done this year, we had to make a decision. We had to decide, because Pride Toronto changed its date, it moved Pride week. Well, if we continued to do the vigil on the Thursday of Pride week, we’d be on Canada Day.  We really thought hard about this. Part of us still remains true to the grassroots cause—I mean really it’s still about honouring, celebrating, remembering and awareness. This year, we had wanted to honour those who had died or were affected by HIV/AIDS in those countries where it’s endemic. Of course with the G20 suddenly in town, we had an opportunity to marry our themes. So we are including universal access and human rights as our theme this year. So this year, given that direction around HIV in countries where it’s endemic, the G20 just made sense.

It also influenced our choice around our priority. Our priority is awareness. Our priority is human rights and universal access [to medical treatment]. And given that really we’re talking about HIV, which goes beyond a Pride event, it was appropriate to hold it this Thursday. So we did introduce the G20 [to this event] in this sense. We’re really raising the flag around awareness, saying HIV touches us all; it’s global. We need to look at ourseves in Canada, because there isn’t universal access in Canada. You can ask many aboriginal communities if they feel they have universal access.

Natalie Samson: What’s been the response to keeping the original date?

Kay Roesslein: I think there was consensus by the committee and by the community there’s been absolute understanding. In terms of it being on Canada Day, people understood not competing with that. And as people unraveled the theme of the vigil, especially with our increased diversity on our committee and in our community, it really made sense. If anything has changed over the years, it’s the diversity of our community and the diversity of the board.

Natalie Samson: Is the event run by any particular organization?

Kay Roesslein: We are a Pride event, although that was a little trickier this year because we are not fitting in their calendar since we’re happening just prior to it. So we’re an associated event. We’re associated with the 519 [Church Street Community Centre]. We hold it at the 519 at the AIDS Memorial. We read out the names each year of those who have passed each year and have been put up on the wall.

Natalie Samson: What is the AIDS Memorial at the 519?

Kay Roesslein: It’s a series of upright standing concrete slabs arranged in an arch. There’s a garden around it and it creates a semi-circle. In front of that semi-circle is a flat cemented area and all of this is raised. On each slab that goes around in a semi-circle are metal plaques engraved with names going back to ’84, I believe.

Natalie Samson: How is it decided which names go on the memorial?

Kay Roesslein: We don’t decide. Any name put forward to the AIDS Memorial Committee [through the 519] usually goes up.

Natalie Samson: And it can be an AIDS-related death from any year?

Kay Roesslein: That’s correct. So tonight, for example, we’re reading out names from 1994, 2003, 2007, 2008, and from 2009 and 2010. There are 23 names added this year. They ask for a fee, but where you can’t there is consideration.

Natalie Samson: What can someone expect tonight?

Kay Roesslein: We have Glad Voices that we start with and we end with Singing Out, a huge community choir, and we’ll have about 50 to 60 people on stage at the end. In between we’ll have individual performers on stage…pieces that are really quite touching. But we end with Singing Out on a very hopeful note.

We invite the audience to go on a journey with us wherein first we acknowledge the facts, the gaps, the things that may upset us and make us angry, our call to action and awareness, then we move towards remembering. That’s when we note all the names. And then we move towards honouring with the candle lighting and we move the flame into the audience. It’s quite beautiful.

The AIDS Candlelight Vigil in Toronto will be held tonight, June 24 at 519 Church Street, Cawthra Square Park, from 9-10pm.

G8 Leaders meet in L'Aquila, Italy, July 8, 2009.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced on January 26 that he was going to use Canada’s Group of Eight presidency to push for an annual G8 summit agenda focused on women’s and children’s health. Former UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis said it best when he called the announcement an act of “chutzpah.”

First of all, Canada lacks credibility on this issue internationally, having consistently failed to meet our own humanitarian aid targets for decades. Secondly, and even more galling, we lack credibility in our own backyard. Consider that aboriginal infant mortality is markedly higher than the general population—Inuit infants are three times less likely to make it to their first birthdays. Among 17 peer countries, one study found, Canada is tied for second-last place when it comes to infant mortality (only the U.S. level is higher). Consider this is the same government that cut funding to the Court Challenges Program, the legal fund that since 1978 had supported legal challenges by minorities, including women. And the same government that heavily cut funding to Status of Women Canada, closing many of its offices across the country. The same government whose pay-equity legislation disappointingly maintains the status quo by encouraging public employers to consider “market demand” when determining wages (the same demand that caused the inequity in the first place). And this is the government that replaced a popular national childcare program with clumsy $100-per-month cash payments to parents. The resulting system isn’t just functionally inept, it’s ideologically offensive: it needlessly tops up budgets for families who can already afford quality childcare, and squeezes the ones who can’t. Since $100 won’t realistically cover the actual cost of quality childcare, the options become choosing not to work—the Ozzie-and-Harriet fantasy that social conservatives prefer, which is only available, of course, to two-parent families with one earning a sufficient living—or covering the difference between the government’s payment and the actual cost.

In other words, the prime minister’s call for the G8 to boost human rights and development for women and children around the world fits both dictionary definitions of chutzpah: unbelievable impertinence and worthy audacity. No one doubts that urgent action is needed to prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths among women and children worldwide, and if the G8 and G20 listen to the PM when they meet in Muskoka and Toronto in June—and more importantly, take real action that will save real lives— then it will be a great accomplishment, domestic criticisms aside.

But given the G8’s stunningly poor record on exactly these issues, there’s no reason to expect that’s how it will go. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development recently announced that the collective aid pledges the G8 nations made at their 2005 Gleneagles summit remain unmet five years later—by the outrageous margin of more than $20 billion. If the prime minister really wants to make a splash at this year’s summit, he should leave his platitudinous speech at home and show up with a signed cheque instead.

Henrietta Lacks lived only to the age of 31, and it’s the acute case of cervical cancer that killed her that also brought change to the world. During radiation treatment, doctors scraped her cancer cells for research. Those cells eventually became known as HeLa, and they are immortal. HeLa cells continue to duplicate to this day, and they’ve been used in everything from polio vaccines to gene mapping to AIDS research.

It’s a truly fascinating story from a science and medical background – how one group of cells can live more than 50 years after the woman they came from died.

But it’s the back-story that sets The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, written by journalist Rebecca Skloot, apart. Lacks and her family were unaware that her cells were harvested and used in medical research, and they only recently found out about her scientific importance. Her immediate family, currently based in Baltimore, never received any compensation for her cells—despite the fact that they were taken without permission and subsequently used by wealthy research companies.

As Skloot develops the story into a profile of Lacks and her family, we get an intimate profile of Henrietta’s daughter, Deborah, as well as her sons and husband. Immortal Life reads like a murder mystery most of the time, even though we know who committed the crime.

Says her daughter Deborah:

“I always thought it was strange, if our mother cells done so much for medicine, how come her family can’t afford to see no doctors? Don’t make no sense. People got rich off my mother without us even knowin’ about them takin’ her cells, now we don’t get a dime.”

It’s easy to praise The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: it’s engaging and well-written. But the importance of the book might be just as overlooked at Henrietta herself, who has been rarely praised as the person responsible for saving lives around the world. This book goes some way toward correcting that original injustice. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks shouldn’t be placed on the bookshelves of only those interested in medical research and history—the story weaves itself through various genres, and is related to politics, race relations, gender studies and health care. Skloot proves that Lacks is: “An unsung heroine of medicine.”

In the end, medical research is about people, and it’s people like Lacks and her family we should be reading about to understand our current health policy, what it means to the average Canadian, and what our health system could become. The media is often to blame for taking science reporting and leaving it at that—cells and researchers and technical terms. But it’s who that research is helping that should be the focus.