With one year to go until the formal expiration date, the webpage<\/a> describing the initiatives do not have any updates on how or whether they will continue.\u00a0<\/p>\n Michael Kwag, executive director at the Community-Based Research Centre, said his organization received federal money from the 2021 round, and that the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has offered an opportunity for organizations to apply for an additional year of funding until 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur concern has grown over the last year because the folks at PHAC have been really non-committal about what\u2019s happening to the funding program beyond March 2028,\u201d said Kwag, whose organization\u2019s research initiatives focus on the health of people of different sexualities and genders. \u201cNow would be about the time that we would be preparing to develop project proposals for the next five-year cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n Between 2022 and 2027, the\u00a0Community-Based Research Centre is receiving $2.2-million for one project\u00a0to help improve the accessibility and uptake of health services for\u00a0sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections (STBBIs) for certain populations, and $2.14-million for a separate project in development with other organizations.\u00a0<\/p>\n Both Kwag and Jody Jollimore, executive director at CATIE (which is an information source on sexual health, HIV, and hepatitis C, among other subjects) said they\u2019re concerned that the Community Action Fund could be combined with other existing funds.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n They both point to language in the 2025 federal budget<\/a>, which explains how PHAC will meet its spending cut target of 15 per cent as a part of Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s (Nepean, Ont.) comprehensive expenditure review: \u201cPHAC will streamline its program delivery by consolidating grants and contributions programs into larger funds. While these new funds will operate with a lower overall funding envelope once temporary funding ends, their impact will be increased by targeting investments to core federal public health priorities that are central to PHAC\u2019s mandate, supporting delivery partners that demonstrate clear and measurable public health outcomes aligned with the new funds\u2019 objectives, and leveraging increased program flexibility and responsiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs it suddenly going to be a fund for all priorities of the Public Health Agency?\u201d said Jollimore about the possibility that the fund will change. \u201cWill we be having to compete with public vaccination programs and things? What would that look like exactly?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n CATIE received\u00a0$4.1-million from the Community Action Fund in 2025-26, which was used to\u00a0train more than 11,000 frontline workers and volunteers, create 233 new information resources, and deliver more than 800,000 print publications to support prevention, testing, and treatment programs across Canada.<\/p>\n Jollimore said that in discussions about the fund, he has also heard Health Minister Marjorie Michel\u2019s (Papineau, Que.) staff use language similar to what is in the budget.<\/p>\n \u201cThe language has been very specific around streamlining, consolidating, and that\u2019s found both in the budget, but I\u2019ve also heard that in meetings with the minister\u2019s policy staff, who have talked about ideas. Nothing has been decided. Certainly there are ideas around how to make the Community Action Fund more nimble and agile to the government\u2019s priorities,\u201d Jollimore said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Hill Times asked Health Canada whether the Community Action Fund would be consolidated into other funding tools, and whether funding would be extended for this fund or the Harm Reduction Fund.<\/p>\n An emailed response from Health Canada spokesperson Mark Johnson reaffirmed the 2025 budget\u2019s message, saying that changes to its grants and contributions programs include \u201ca modernization exercise,\u201d which will involve \u201cconsolidating existing programs into broader funding streams to improve efficiency and impact. This work will continue to include dedicated support for community-based organizations, recognizing their essential role in Canada\u2019s public health response.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Without naming any particular funds, the statement also said that decisions about \u201cspecific funding approaches, including the timing and format of any potential solicitation processes, have not yet been finalized,\u201d and that the department will continue to engage with partners on the issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n In response to a question about other federal initiatives for HIV prevention and treatment, Johnson pointed to an annual $21-million funding envelope for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research for its HIV\/AIDS and STBBI Research Initiative<\/a>, which \u201chas a strong emphasis on community-based approaches,\u201d and a digital advertising campaign that has run for at least three years encouraging visits to a government website<\/a> called, \u201cYour sexual health matters.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Both Kwag and Jollimore said they have not met with Michel though they would both be interested in discussing the issue directly with the minister.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kwag said he has requested a meeting with the minister, which has not yet been granted, but that he has upcoming meetings with a policy adviser in Michel\u2019s office and PHAC president Nancy Hamzawi. He said he is also trying to have this discussion with Women and Gender Equality Minister Rechie Valdez\u2019s (Mississauga\u2014Streetsville, Ont.) office, which oversees issues related to the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.\u00a0<\/p>\n New HIV cases jump 22.8 per cent between 2022 and 2024<\/p>\n The uncertainty about the future direction of federal HIV funding comes as new information<\/a> from PHAC published last month states that the rate of new infections continues to rise. A brief report, Canada\u2019s Progress Toward Ending the HIV Epidemic, states new HIV infections in 2024\u2014an estimated total of 2,517\u2014were up by 22.8 per cent from 2022, when they were estimated at 2,050.\u00a0<\/p>\n That is an even higher increase than the findings of the previous 2024 report<\/a>, which found that new HIV infections in 2022\u2014an estimated 1,848 at the time the data was released\u2014were up by 15 per cent over 2020, when the figure was estimated to be 1,610.\u00a0<\/p>\n The increase in Manitoba was severe enough\u2014325 cases in 2025 versus 90 in 2019\u2014that the province declared the issue a public health emergency<\/a> this past May\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Jollimore said the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to rising national numbers as public health priorities shifted to the pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDuring that time, clinics were closed or repurposed. It was difficult to get testing. It was difficult to get health-care appointments to get your treatment, \u2026 or your PrEP,\u201d he said, referring to pre-exposure prophylaxis, a medication that helps prevent HIV transmission.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kwag said the higher rates are \u201cnot entirely surprising,\u201d considering stagnant federal funding for HIV, but are \u201cfrustrating\u201d because Canada has the tools, including medical resources both for prevention and treatment, that could bring down rates.<\/p>\n The increasing number of infected Canadians puts this country\u2019s ability to meet its international targets by UNAIDS at risk. The United Nations program focused on ending AIDS is asking signatories, including Canada, to meet the following goals by 2030: that 95 per cent of people living with HIV are diagnosed, 95 per cent of those that are diagnosed are receiving treatment, and 95 per cent of those on treatment have a suppressed viral load.\u00a0<\/p>\n As per last month\u2019s data from PHAC, 91 per cent of people with HIV were diagnosed, 86 per cent of those with a diagnosis were receiving treatment, and 96 per cent of those being treated had a suppressed viral load.\u00a0<\/p>\n Health Canada\u2019s Johnson said in his statement that the Government of Canada \u201cremains committed to the global goal of ending HIV\u201d and other STBBIs as public health concerns by 2030.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n Jollimore said he likes to remind people that these statistics are about Canadian people.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to slice this from an equity issue, you can look at it and say, \u2018Well, look at the Canadians that are being impacted by HIV. They\u2019re the least privileged Canadians, and so of course we need to do more.\u2019 If you want to slice this from an economic sort-of lens, then it also makes sense. Each new infection is $1.44-million in health-care costs over the lifetime of that individual. When you\u2019re looking at these recent estimates, that\u2019s over $3-billion in health care just in one year of new infections,\u201d Jollimore said.\u00a0<\/p>\n More education, public awareness needed, says Sen. Cormier<\/p>\n Equity is a key premise in a report tabled last October by Independent Senator Ren\u00e9 Cormier (New Brunswick), a longtime advocate for an improved HIV response. Entitled Toward Fair and Equitable Public Health: Ending HIV and STBBIs<\/a>, the report is a synopsis of an inquiry into the issue launched by Cormier, and includes recommendations from himself and other Senators.\u00a0<\/p>\n In an interview with The Hill Times, Cormier stressed the need for more sexual health education in schools but also increased communication efforts by federal public health officials to reduce the stigma around HIV and increase awareness that the disease is not confined to a single population.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m from the [gay] community, so people from my generation, we were there when [HIV\/AIDS] happened at the beginning. But the young people, they either think that it belongs to our generation and that it doesn\u2019t belong to them. \u2026 It couldn\u2019t happen to them,\u201d Cormier said.\u00a0<\/p>\n While noting that he doesn\u2019t want to single out any particular group, Cormier said HIV impacts various populations, including Black people, Indigenous Peoples, women, etc.\u00a0<\/p>\n PHAC\u2019s 2026 statistics\u2014which don\u2019t provide much detail in terms of demographics\u2014state that 50.4 per cent of the estimated 70,900 people with HIV in Canada are gay, bisexual, and men who have sex with other men. More than one quarter\u201427.5 per cent\u2014are women, and 12.6 per cent are people who inject drugs. (The brief report released last month is a preview of a more comprehensive document, which a Health Canada spokesperson told The Hill Times is expected to be released before the end of the year).<\/p>\n In an indication of how the epidemic can vary between regions, a press release about the Manitoba public health emergency states risk factors in the province are different from the national trends, with more than 50 per cent of cases belonging to females, and most newly diagnosed cases occurring in females under the age of 40, which increases the risk of perinatal cases. The release also said that Indigenous Peoples are disproportionately impacted.<\/p>\n
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Cormier said there needs to be more public health communication on the fact that \u201cundetectable [HIV] is untransmittable\u201d\u2014a statement he continually repeats in his own public speeches<\/a> about the disease.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cormier said he would like to see more funding from the federal government for Canadians and international organizations working on the issue, as well as research, especially for data that can help explain why rates are increasing.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Carney government indicated in Budget 2025 that global health funding would be cut<\/a> as a part of its spending review. The Canadian Press<\/a> reported last November that the federal Liberals made \u201cCanada\u2019s first-ever cut\u201d to funding for a major international development program for fighting infectious diseases. That program, which this year received $190-million less than Canada\u2019s 2022 pledge of $1.02-billion, is the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.\u00a0<\/p>\n Without mentioning any names, Kwag said the work to reduce HIV rates has supporters in \u201cmany\u201d MPs and Senators who know how important this is.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m optimistic that with more supporters, that we\u2019ll be able to kind of reach the minister of health and hopefully the Prime Minister\u2019s Office as well, because this is something that I think they have an opportunity to provide some commitment ahead of some other budgetary moves that they need to be making, and so we feel this is kind of like [a] critical juncture now to make the strategic move to sustain the investment,\u201d Kwag said.\u00a0<\/p>\n tsanci@hilltimes.com<\/p>\n The Hill Times<\/p>\n \u00a0
\n <\/p>\n Tessie Sanci is an award-winning health policy journalist who has been a deputy editor at The Hill Times since May 2025. She originally joined Hill Times Publishing in 2017 as a journalist at The Lobby Monitor and editor of Hill Times Research. She began her journalism career in the Greater Toronto Area. Contact her at tsanci@hilltimes.com. See all stories BY TESSIE SANCI<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the rate of new HIV infections in Canada continues to climb, advocates say they\u2019re worried about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[49,48,84],"class_list":["post-868405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Michael-Kwag-683x1024.jpg\")
Michael Kwag, executive director at the Community-Based Research Centre, said that his organization would, this year, be preparing proposals for a new round of funding under the Community Action Fund, but they haven\u2019t received a signal from PHAC that the fund is continuing past 2028. Photograph courtesy of the Community-Based Research Centre<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/6L8A9516_2-1024x683.jpg\")
Independent Senator Ren\u00e9 Cormier tabled a report in the Upper Chamber last year with recommendations on how to ensure Canada\u2019s response to the HIV epidemic is equitable. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade<\/p>\n
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