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Federal funding: what future for the fight against HIV?

The Fqsida organizations affected by the federal cuts are continuing, alongside their Canadian counterparts, their efforts to maintain their funds and to thoroughly review the way in which Ottawa finances the fight against HIV.

At a time when the end of the pandemic seems technically possible, we deplore the lack of vision on the part of the federal government.

In this context of great precariousness, your support for the fight against HIV in Quebec makes all the more the difference. Your one-off donations are also very precious to us! Thank you!

GEIPSI: WHAT FUTURE FOR THE FIGHT AGAINST HIV?

Yvon Couillard is the Managing Director of GEIPSI, a Montreal organization working with a highly marginalized clientele living with HIV / AIDS or the hepatitis C virus (HCV) and which has a profile in homelessness, drug addiction and, sometimes , in mental health. The interview he gave us sheds a worrying light on the future of the fight against HIV in Canada.

Federal funding represents 45% of GEIPSI’s budget. For Yvon, the priority is clear: maintain the day center. But the loss of these funds would mean the elimination of one of the two worker positions, reduced services and reduced hours of operation.

For now, Yvon is awaiting a response to his request for a transitional budget: if it is accepted, the mechanism provides for the organizations concerned to maintain funds for one year. At the end of this year, the directors will have to present their strategic funding plan. The cuts planned by Ottawa are in no way called into question and organizations are asked to find the necessary money for their activities themselves!

The situation is particularly worrying, as Ottawa does not seem to have any vision in the fight against HIV and HCV. In Quebec, for example, organizations working with injecting drug users (among key populations), homeless people, or with women (except sex workers), are mostly threatened by the cuts by the federal government. No strategy to supplement the services endangered by these cuts seems to be planned!

Yvon knows that he can count on the mobilization of the community movement against HIV to obtain federal funding for 2018-2022 for these organizations. But he does not hide the concern of his team and his beneficiaries.

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