Mark Haden: September 2016

Hi all

So, in case it's of interest, I've had it confirmed by the producer that this weekend, CBC National Radio's (English-language) afternoon show on Sunday, "Cross-Country Checkup," will focus entirely on the issues of drug policy and harm reduction (domestic and international).

It airs on Sunday afternoon from 4-6 pm in the Eastern time zone – you'll have to see when it airs in your time zone. The full two hours will be devoted to this topic, with a series of guests and opportunities for callers to call in and contribute to the conversation.

I'm going to be one of the invited guests participating, on about roughly 5:15 pm EDT – but I think the whole show will be worth listening to, since it sounds like they will have some other good people on (I don't know the full line-up), and the full show is dedicated to the topic.

Some good traction on various fronts to mark 9/30.

Cheers.

Richard

Richard Elliott

Executive Director | Directeur général

Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network | Réseau juridique canadien VIH/sida

600 – 1240 Bay St., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5R 2A7

+1 416 595 1666 (ext. 229)

www.aidslaw.ca | Facebook | Twitter: @AIDSLAW

Get on our mailing list | Inscrivez-vous à notre liste d'envoi courriel

From: Richard Elliott
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2016 2:17 PM
Subject: Legal Network update re "9/30" activities -- FW: A grim five-year anniversary as the law stalls progress on safer injection services ~ Un sombre cinquième anniversaire sous le signe d'une loi qui fait piétiner les services d'injection plus sécuritaire

Hi all

Some updates from our end here at the Legal Network on this 5th anniversary of the SCC's ruling in favour of Insite:

1. Op-ed in the Globe & Mail

We have an op-ed published this morning (online version), calling for the repeal of the Respect for Communities Act. It's here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/vancouvers-safer-injection-services-stalled-as-overdose-death-toll-mounts/article32163010/. And the full text is pasted below. Please share far and wide.

2. E-blast to all MPs and Senators

We've sent out an individual e-mail to each MP and Senator today (English or French version as appropriate to the recipient). The text of it (English version only) is below. As you can see, it reiterates the call to repeal the RCA, includes a link to the Globe & Mail op-ed – and we also incorporated a link to the CAPUD video as well. Glad we could boost the CAPUD signal!

3. E-bulletin: Communiqué

Our regular bilingual e-bulletin, Communiqué, has gone out today, with a focus on this issue, to about 5000 recipients … including again with a link to the CAPUD video and the Globe & Mail commentary. It's below.

4. Social media

We're sharing the op-ed and the CAPUD video via our social media feeds.

Best,

Richard

Richard Elliott

Executive Director | Directeur général

Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network | Réseau juridique canadien VIH/sida

600 – 1240 Bay St., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5R 2A7

+1 416 595 1666 (ext. 229)

www.aidslaw.ca | Facebook | Twitter: @AIDSLAW

Get on our mailing list | Inscrivez-vous à notre liste d'envoi courriel

************

ITEM 1: COMMENTARY IN THE GLOBE & MAIL (Friday Sep 30, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/vancouvers-safer-injection-services-stalled-as-overdose-death-toll-mounts/article32163010/

Vancouver's safer injection services stalled as overdose death toll mounts

Richard Elliott and Nicholas Caivano

Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Sep. 30, 2016 11:41AM EDT

Last updated Friday, Sep. 30, 2016 12:12PM EDT

Richard Elliott is the executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. Nicholas Caivano is a policy analyst with the Legal Network.

Plus ça change. On Sept. 30, 2011, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of Vancouver's Insite, North America's first legally authorized safer injection site. It was the culmination of a years-long struggle to open – and then keep open, in the face of active hostility by the government of the day – one health facility that could help address the crisis of HIV and of overdose deaths among people injecting drugs in the Downtown Eastside.

Five years later, history is repeating itself, unnecessarily. The struggle for safer injection services continues against the backdrop of another deadly crisis of fatalities and injuries related to opioid overdose, this time on a national scale. British Columbia has again declared a public health emergency.

These injuries and deaths can be prevented. As the Supreme Court confirmed in its historic judgment, safer injection sites save lives. The court was also clear that criminal laws prohibiting drug possession cannot be allowed to impede the effective operation of such services. It ordered the health minister of the day to issue an exemption from those laws so Insite could operate.

In response, the then-government flouted the ruling by passing an egregious new bill – the cynically named Respect for Communities Act – to create multiple bureaucratic barriers to ever getting such a ministerial exemption to operate such services.

The result is that in 2016 it is harder than ever to legally establish such services. There are still only two in the entire country.

As the staggering toll of overdose deaths continues to rise, repealing this harmful law is more urgent than ever. It is past time to institute a straightforward, simple process for applications to enable safer injection services to operate without risk of criminal prosecution.

Proposals to implement such services are being considered in municipalities across Canada. But instead of enabling access to them, the Respect for Communities Act makes it exceedingly difficult for public health and community agencies to get the ministerial exemption needed to operate them legally.

The hurdles the legislation creates are unjustifiable.

The law requires applicants to engage in excessive consultations and submit extensive information before the health minister is even permitted, by law, to consider the application. Much of what is required is unnecessary and unwarranted, including the "opinion" (whether based on evidence or not) of various institutions and entities – ones that, in plenty of places, have already demonstrated their opposition to safer injection facilities or reluctance to endorse them.

The law also directs that a health minister may only issue an exemption in "exceptional circumstances," exactly the opposite of what the Supreme Court ruled five years ago.

No other health service is subject to such politicized scrutiny and hurdles. Years of work shouldn't be required to implement a straightforward, life-saving service. But the law, rooted in prejudice against those the former government repeatedly dehumanized as "junkies," continues to violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms every day it contributes to a delay in scaling up these urgently needed services.

For months, Canada's new government has been saying that it's open to changing the law if it creates barriers to safer injection sites. There's plenty of evidence of the many ways in which the law does precisely that. Just last week, as overdose deaths continue to rise, B.C.'s top health officials reported to the media that two new anticipated sites face hurdles created by the law.

Despite this, the government hasn't yet committed to any changes. The delay is unconscionable.

Five years ago, the Supreme Court ruling was a momentous step forward. But rights vindicated on paper are largely meaningless if one government can block their realization with deadly legislation in response, and then another government then fails to remove this barrier while professing its concern.

The barest minimum that can and should be done is to take down the barriers to safer injection sites. The government should repeal the Respect for Communities Act without delay. Lives hang in the balance.

*******

ITEM 2: TEXT (ENGLISH VERSION) OF EMAIL TO ALL PARLIAMENTARIANS

From:
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2016 1:27 PM
To:
Subject: A grim anniversary: overdose deaths mount while law stalls progress

Dear [Mr./Ms.] [name], MP

On this day five years ago, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of Vancouver's Insite, North America's first legally-authorized safer injection site. But five years later, Canada is again in the midst of an opioid overdose crisis and the death toll is mounting — not just in B.C., but across the country — and access to these life-saving services is stalled.

The ongoing crisis of opioid misuse in Canada has been making headlines in recent months. Last week, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health unanimously adopted a motion for an emergency study into the opioid crisis.

We, too, recognize the need for an urgent response. That's why the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, along with more than 70 Canadian civil society organizations, recently issued "ACTION =LIFE," a call to action addressed to both federal and provincial governments, urging politicians to act immediately in five key areas as part of a coordinated, evidence-based national response to the alarming increase in opioid deaths.

One of these recommendations we reiterated again this morning in our commentary in The Globe and Mail: the repeal of the so-called Respect for Communities Act, which sets excessive and unreasonable requirements to open and operate life-saving safer consumption services. No other health service is subjected to these kinds of onerous — and frankly, discriminatory — requirements.

For months, the federal government has been saying that it's open to changing the law if it creates barriers to supervised injection sites. We welcome the openness, but there's no reason to delay acting. There's plenty of evidence the law is a barrier. Even top public health officials are part of the widespread, growing calls to remove the hurdles created by the law.

Safer injection sites save lives. Insite has shown this, other studies have shown this, the Supreme Court of Canada in its 2011 ruling recognized this, and the federal Health Minister has said this. We need more of them in municipalities around the country to save our loved ones.

Yet, five years after the Supreme Court's ruling, there are still only two authorized services in the whole country, while the death toll mounts. As highlighted in this new video, legislative red tape is deadly. The time to act is now: repeal the Respect for Communities Act without delay.

Sincerely,

Richard Elliott

Executive Director

******

ITEM 3: our e-bulletin Communiqué

From: Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network / Réseau juridique canadien VIH/sida [mailto:info@aidslaw.ca]
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2016 1:40 PM
To: CATIE
Subject: A grim five-year anniversary as the law stalls progress on safer injection services ~ Un sombre cinquième anniversaire sous le signe d'une loi qui fait piétiner les services d'injection plus sécuritaire

Voir plus bas pour la version française.

September 30, 2016

Five years ago today, we cheered when the Supreme Court of Canada declared Vancouver's Insite, the first legally-authorized safer injection site in North America, should stay open. Insite was, and is, an essential part of the response to the crisis of HIV and to overdose deaths among this community.

Fast-forward to the present day, where the struggle for safer injection services continues Canada-wide against the backdrop of another deadly crisis of fatalities and injuries related to opioid overdose. British Columbia has once again declared a public health emergency. Just a few weeks ago, on International Overdose Awareness Day, more than 70 civil society organizations, including the Legal Network, called on the federal government to take immediate action in addressing this national opioid overdose crisis.

Life-saving safer injection services must be part of that response. And yet five years after the court victory, Canada still has only two authorized sites in the whole country.

The former government thumbed its nose at the Supreme Court and passed a bill — the ill-named Respect for Communities Act — deliberately designed to create multiple bureaucratic barriers to ever obtaining the ministerial exemption from Canada's laws on drug possession needed to operate safer injection services without the risk of clients being prosecuted. With the election of a new government with a declared commitment to harm reduction, there was hope that this odious, deadly legislation would be repealed.

But five years after the Supreme Court ruling, and nearly one year after the election, we're still waiting.

We welcome Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott's clear commitment to harm reduction and the stated willingness to changing the law if it creates barriers to safer injection sites. But there's plenty of evidence of the many ways in which the law does precisely that. Just last week, as overdose deaths continue to rise, public health officials in B.C. spoke out in the media about hurdles created by the law. Despite this, so far the government has not yet committed to scrap or change the law.

The barest minimum that can and should be done is to take down the barriers to safer injection sites. As we mark the grim anniversary of Insite, what an appropriate time this would be for the government to announce it will repeal the Respect for Communities Act without delay.

Toronto event: ONE LOVE - LGBTI Rights in Jamaica

Join veteran CBC host Marcia Young on October 12 in Toronto for a conversation with three leading activists in the global struggle for LGBT rights: Ugandan Bishop Christopher Senyonjo (author of In Defense of All God's Children), Dane Lewis, executive director of the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG), and Jamaican human rights activist and Legal Network lawyer Maurice Tomlinson, who is leading the court challenge to Jamaica's anti-sodomy law. This event is free but registration is required.

UN High-Level Panel report on access to medicines

A high-level body of eminent persons advising UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently released their long-anticipated report declaring that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and similar agreements ratcheting up intellectual property protection and enforcement, endanger countries' efforts to ensure access to affordable medicines and other health technologies and run counter to their human rights obligations. GRAN wrote an open letter to the federal Ministers of Health and International Trade and you can help amplify this message now, while the government is gauging support and opposition to the TPP.

Sex workers speak out

Read this series from the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform with first-hand testimonies by sex workers from across the country on how Canada's harmful new law on prostitution, the so-called Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, has affected their lives.

Beyond Blame: Challenging HIV Criminalization at AIDS 2016

Watch this video from Beyond Blame II, the AIDS 2016 pre-conference on HIV criminalization, organized by HIV Justice Worldwide, of which the Legal Network is a founding member.

Life Won't Wait

Watch this new video from the Canadian Association of People Who Use Drugs (CAPUD), "The Respect for Communities Act is Drowning Us in Red Tape."

le 30 septembre 2016

Il y a cinq ans, jour pour jour, nous nous réjouissions de la déclaration de la Cour suprême du Canada selon laquelle l'Insite de Vancouver – premier site d'injection plus sécuritaire autorisé par la loi en Amérique du Nord – devrait rester ouvert. L'Insite était, et est encore, un aspect essentiel de la réponse à la crise du VIH et des décès par surdose au sein de cette communauté.

Aujourd'hui, la lutte pour des services d'injection plus sécuritaire se poursuit*, à travers le pays, sur toile de fond d'une autre crise fatale de décès et de préjudices liés aux surdoses d'opioïdes. La Colombie-Britannique a de nouveau déclaré une urgence de santé publique. Et il y a quelques semaines, à l'occasion de la Journée internationale de sensibilisation aux surdoses, plus de 70 organismes de la société civile, y compris le Réseau juridique, ont exhorté le gouvernement fédéral à prendre des mesures immédiates pour répondre à cette crise nationale de surdoses d'opioïdes.

Des services salvateurs d'injection plus sécuritaire doivent faire partie intégrante de cette réponse. Pourtant, cinq ans après cette victoire en cour, le Canada n'a autorisé que deux sites dans l'ensemble du pays.

Le gouvernement précédent a fait un pied de nez à la Cour suprême en adoptant un projet de loi — la soi-disant Loi sur le respect des collectivités — intentionnellement conçu pour créer de multiples obstacles bureaucratiques à l'obtention de l'exemption ministérielle des lois canadiennes sur la possession de drogues nécessaire à exploiter des services d'injection plus sécuritaire sans risque de poursuites pour les clients. Avec l'élection d'un nouveau gouvernement ouvertement engagé à la réduction des méfaits, nous avions espoir que cette loi odieuse et fatale serait abrogée.

Or, cinq ans après le jugement de la Cour suprême, et près d'un an après l'élection, nous attendons toujours.

Nous applaudissons l'engagement clair de la ministre fédérale de la Santé, Jane Philpott, à la réduction des méfaits et sa volonté affirmée de modifier la loi si elle crée des obstacles aux sites d'injection plus sécuritaire. Il existe pourtant de solides preuves démontrant les nombreuses façons par lesquelles la loi fait exactement cela. Justement, la semaine dernière, devant l'augmentation continue des décès par surdose, des responsables de la santé publique de la Colombie-Britannique ont dénoncé* dans les médias les embûches créées par la loi. Et malgré cela, le gouvernement ne s'est pas encore engagé à l'abroger ou à la modifier.

Abolir les obstacles aux sites d'injection plus sécuritaire est le strict minimum qui peut et doit être fait. À l'heure où nous soulignons le sombre anniversaire de l'Insite, le gouvernement aurait ici l'occasion idéale d'annoncer qu'il abrogera sans délai la Loi sur le respect des collectivités.

*Désolé, mais ces articles sont seulement disponibles en anglais.

Événement à Toronto : ONE LOVE – Les droits LGBTI en Jamaïque

Joignez-vous à Marcia Young, animatrice chevronnée de la CBC, le 12 octobre à Toronto, pour une conversation avec trois éminents activistes de la lutte mondiale pour les droits LGBT : l'évêque ougandais Christopher Senyonjo (auteur de In Defense of All God's Children); Dane Lewis, directeur général du Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG) et activiste jamaïcain pour les droits humains; et Maurice Tomlinson, avocat au Réseau juridique dirigeant la contestation judiciaire de la loi jamaïcaine anti-sodomie. La participation à cet événement est gratuite, mais l'inscription est requise*.

Rapport d'un Panel de haut niveau de l'ONU sur l'accès aux médicaments

Une instance de haut niveau composée d'éminentes personnalités conseillant le Secrétaire général de l'ONU, Ban Ki-moon, a récemment publié son rapport (en anglais seulement, mais lisez le communiqué de presse ici) longuement attendu selon lequel le Partenariat transpacifique (PTP) et des accords similaires resserrant la protection et l'application des droits de propriété intellectuelle compromettent les efforts des pays pour assurer l'accès à des médicaments et à d'autres technologies de santé abordables et vont à l'encontre de leurs obligations de droits humains. Le mouvement de soutien des grands-mères (GRAN) a écrit une lettre ouverte aux ministres de la Santé et du Commerce international; vous pouvez aider à amplifier ce message dès maintenant, pendant que le gouvernement évalue l'appui et l'opposition au PTP.

Les travailleuse(-eur)s du sexe prennent la parole

Lisez cette série d'articles de l'Alliance canadienne pour la réforme des lois sur le travail du sexe, qui présente des témoignages de travailleuse(-eur)s du sexe de partout au Canada sur les impacts de la nouvelle loi néfaste du Canada sur la prostitution, la soi-disant Loi sur la protection des collectivités et des personnes victimes d'exploitation, dans leurs vies.

« Beyond Blame: Challenging HIV Criminalization at AIDS 2016 »

Regrdez cette vidéo tirée de « Beyond Blame II », la séance pré-congrès de SIDA 2016 sur la criminalisation du VIH organisée par HIV Justice Worldwide, dont le Réseau juridique est membre fondateur.

La Loi sur le respect des collectivités nous noie dans la bureaucracie

Regardez cette vidéo de l'Association canadienne des personnes qui consomment des drogues (ACPCD) concernant la «Loi sur le respect des collectivités » qui rend l'ouverture d'un site de consommation supervisée
presque impossible.