Letter to Prime Minister Harper: Followup to May 8th

Dear Prime Minister,

I am writing to follow-up on our May 8 church leaders’ letter to you on the subject of HIV/AIDS. Thank you for referring our letter to the Minister for International Cooperation.

At a recent meeting of the Governing Board of the Canadian Council of Churches, member churches resolved to strengthen their own commitment to addressing the AIDS pandemic. Please find a copy of our resolution attached.

In relation to the points made in the earlier letter, we note that Minister Verner acknowledged in her June 2 speech to the United Nations General Assembly that “We have all made strong commitments to bring an end to this horrible pandemic. It is time to deliver on those commitments.” But Canada did not make any new commitments at the General Assembly and Canada and the G8 have not yet delivered on their commitments. At a news conference in New York during the General Assembly Stephen Lewis called the lack of progress on new funding commitments a “scandalous betrayal” of the commitments made at the G8 meeting last year in Gleneagles.

We are therefore deeply concerned that the government of Canada has not yet seized the initiative to demonstrate leadership at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto this August. Indeed it has been reported that you will not be attending the Conference. We appreciate the complexities of your busy schedule, but we urge you to please reconsider and attend the event.