On December 1, World AIDS Day, CUPE Ontario members pause to remember, reflect, and recommit to the fight against HIV and AIDS. Today, as every day, our demands are for high-quality public health services for people living with HIV/AIDS, for fair pay and decent work for the people who deliver those services, and for justice and dignity for everyone affected by HIV/AIDS.
Despite advances in treatment, AIDS is still real and members of our communities still suffer from its stigma. It continues to affect people across Ontario, across Canada and around the world. It disproportionately harms women and people with disabilities, along with Black, racialized, and Indigenous communities. These groups have always borne the brunt of systemic inequities in health care, housing, and social support that determine the well being of people living with HIV/AIDS.
CUPE is proud to represent workers in AIDS service organizations across this province. These members are frontline heroes who provide vital services to people living with HIV/AIDS. They deliver education, care and advocacy. They fight for prevention and against stigma every day. They ensure that people living with HIV/AIDS are not forgotten, not marginalized, and not left behind. On World AIDS Day, we honour their work and their courage.
And we remember that they do this work against a backdrop of relentless Conservative cuts. As in every other sector, Ford PCs in Ontario fail both CUPE members and those they serve who are living with HIV/AIDS. Year after year, the Ford government has cut funding to community health programs and AIDS service organizations. These cuts are not abstract: they mean fewer resources for prevention, fewer supports for people living with HIV/AIDS, and fewer protections for the most vulnerable. One striking outcome of this underfunding in the planned closure of AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT), where some 50 CUPE members work. Because of direct political choices, the organization is scheduled to close in 2026, even though rates of HIV infections in Canada jumped 35% in 2023 and our country has the highest rate of new HIV infections of any G7 country.
Similar choices are being made on an international scale. When US President Trump cut USAID funding for HIV/AIDS programs, the consequences were immediate and devastating. A UN report shows that those cuts will lead to an additional 6.6 million new HIV infections, 4.2 million AIDS-related deaths, and 3 million more children orphaned by AIDS over the course of his term. These numbers are staggering, but they underline a simple truth: government funding saves lives. In the case of HIV/Aids, when governments cut, people die.
The influence of this right-wing turn is seen at the Canadian federal level. Last month, the Carney government announced a 17% cut to this country’s contribution to the Global Fund, a program that fights infectious diseases, including AIDS, in the world’s poorest countries. Shortly afterward, Prime Minister Mark Carney declared that Canada does not have a “feminist foreign policy,” even though we know that funding for women’s health projects and education that are the backbone of AIDS prevention and treatment. With these decisions, Canada is mimicking its American and provincial counterparts and abandoning a comprehensive fight against HIV/AIDS,
As CUPE members, we are used to fighting for the services we deliver every day, but we need willing and committed partners in the struggle. We need governments that support us and the people we serve. We need funding that sustains our work, not cuts that threaten its survival.
On World AIDS Day, we vow to continue fighting all funding cuts for HIV/AIDS and demanding investment in community health and AIDS service organizations. Above all, our work will serve as a reminder that HIV/AIDS is still real, that stigma is still real, and that the fight is not over.
CUPE Ontario will keeping standing with our members and with people living with HIV/AIDS. We will continue to fight for funding, for dignity, and for justice. Because the right-wing turn in politics is not just rhetoric—it is killing people. And we will not be silent.
On this World AIDS Day, let us recommit ourselves to the struggle. Let us honour the lives lost, the lives saved, and the lives still at risk. And let us demand that governments do their part – because funding matters, because lives matter, and because AIDS is still real.
