{"id":218806,"date":"2019-06-14T20:17:51","date_gmt":"2019-06-15T00:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=218806"},"modified":"2019-06-14T20:17:51","modified_gmt":"2019-06-15T00:17:51","slug":"liberals-hope-to-deal-with-hiv-non-disclosure-issue-if-re-elected-lametti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/06\/14\/liberals-hope-to-deal-with-hiv-non-disclosure-issue-if-re-elected-lametti\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberals hope to deal with HIV non disclosure issue if re elected: Lametti"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lametti said the Liberals, if returned to power, could explore options that include drafting a criminal law provision that targets intentional transmission of HIV. (File Photo<\/a>: David Lametti\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO \u2014 The Liberals hope to address the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure if re-elected in the fall, the federal justice minister said Friday as advocacy groups pushed the government to make changes to the law.<\/p>\n

HIV non-disclosure has led to assault or sexual assault charges because it’s been found to invalidate a partner’s consent \u2014 the rationale being that if someone knew a person had HIV, they wouldn’t consent to sexual activity because of the risk of transmission.<\/p>\n

Advocates say the justice system lags behind the science on the issue, with a growing body of evidence saying there is no realistic possibility of transmission of HIV if a person is on antiretroviral therapy and has had a suppressed viral load for six months.<\/p>\n

A parliamentary committee has been examining the issue for months and is expected to release a report with recommendations next week. Justice Minister David Lametti said the Liberals want to address the matter but won’t have time to act before the October election.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur legislative runway is over,\u201d Lametti said after speaking at a symposium on HIV criminalization in Toronto. \u201cThe house will rise at some point, perhaps as early as next week … I hope that our government will be re-elected so we’ll be able to hit the ground running.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lametti said the Liberals, if returned to power, could explore options that include drafting a criminal law provision that targets intentional transmission of HIV.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to look at the criminal law … and look at what’s within our jurisdiction … and trying to achieve that balance, as a number of people in the room have stated, in trying to draft a criminal law provision which targets only intent and not criminalize everything else,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Richard Elliott, Executive Director of the Canadian HIV\/AIDS Legal Network, said he’s concerned that the timing of the committee’s report \u2014 so close to the federal election \u2014 could mean its recommendations get lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s unfortunate that it’s taken this long, several-year process since the last election, to get to the point of actually having a committee report with some recommendations that could then inform possible legislation,\u201d he said. \u201cThe issue, however, isn’t going to go away for people living with HIV … we will continue to press for Criminal Code reform.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2017, then-federal justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said she would examine how the criminal justice system dealt with people who do not disclose their HIV status to sexual partners.<\/p>\n

Late last year, the government instructed federal prosecutors in the North that they should no longer prosecute anyone for not disclosing their HIV status to a sex partner where there is no risk of transmitting the virus. The rules apply only in the territories where federal prosecutors have jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

Elliott said he’s hopeful that the Justice and Human Rights committee’s report will include a recommendation to establish a consistent policy for prosecutors at the provincial level.<\/p>\n

Agencies advocating for de-criminalization of HIV non-disclosure agree that the law needs to change and it is a public health issue, not something that should be dealt with as sexual assault, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is just a vast overreach in the Criminal Code as it’s been interpreted and applied,\u201d he said. \u201cParliament needs to fix that and that will remain the case after the coming election.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 The Liberals hope to address the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure if re-elected in the fall, the federal justice …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":218807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-shawn-jeffords","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218808,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218806\/revisions\/218808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}