Stephen Lewis always has time for Louise Binder.
Last Friday, amidst a frenzy of interviews and press conferences, the UN's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa called the Sun to reflect on the difference this 5-foot and 101-pound Toronto firebrand makes.
"Louise has emerged as the galvanizing symbol of activism against the AIDS epidemic in Canada and she stands almost alone in the passion, energy and leadership she has devoted to the fight," he said.
MOBILIZED PEOPLE
"This tremendous achievement will be felt by everyone (at Toronto's AIDS conference) because she is seen as a leader within Canada ... and internationally, where she has mobilized people living with AIDS, especially women."
In 2004, Binder formed a small Canadian coalition of activists to make women an integral part of the Toronto AIDS conference.
"I've always had a special place in my heart for women, but we've always been sidelined at these conferences," the 57-year-old HIV-positive Toronto resident said.
The coalition created a "Blueprint for Action on Women and Girls and HIV/AIDS" and asked that women have equal time -- 50% of research papers, scholarships, speakers, plenaries and a young woman's research award -- at the conference.
Today, Binder is speaking at the first World AIDS conference-endorsed women's march and rally and will close this morning's session, the first woman ever to do so.
Many more women are presenting in person and the research award will be presented on Wednesday.
"It's been a fun ride," she said last week, looking back on her decade as an activist. "I have no regrets at all and I wouldn't change anything. I think this is what I was destined to do and it feels good."
In 1996, then-prime minister Jean Chretien decided not to attend Vancouver's World AIDS conference and sent Health Minister David Dingwall.
Binder decided to embarrass the Liberals and spent hours in backrooms organizing her first major demonstration.
"I never saw anything at that conference," she said.
When Dingwall stood up to speak, thousands of world activists stood up, turned their backs and screamed, "Shame. Shame. Shame," throughout his speech. He was so upset, he left the conference the next day, she said.
"It was the first time I felt the power to make a difference."
In 1997, during Chretien's election campaign, he announced his government was "planning to sunset" its promised annual $42.2 million HIV/AIDS funding after only five years, Binder said.
Her tiny cohort of 10 activists wanted the federal Liberals to commit to permanent AIDS funding, so she and another HIV-positive woman bought two tickets to a huge Chretien fundraiser at Toronto's Sheraton Hotel.
Luckily, a Liberal lawyer friend of Binder's invited them to sit at her table -- front and centre. Chretien walked on stage to thunderous applause. After it stopped and before he began speaking, the two women stood up, but were "engulfed" by three towering security guards.
Binder managed to yell: "Renew the National AIDS Strategy now," before being "escorted" out of the room.
"I heard Chretien say, 'Look what politicians have to put up with,' a remark that elicited weak laughter from the audience," Binder recalled.
The next day, opening a building in New Brunswick, Chretien announced he was renewing the National AIDS Strategy.
In 2004, Binder was leading a campaign for this federal AIDS funding to be doubled to $84.4 million per year.
"It was the dying days of the Martin government, we were planning a demonstration in front of a Montreal hotel and Martin's people knew it," she said.
At the 11th hour, they called and promised on the phone to double this funding over the next five years, she said.
FUNDING PRESSURE
"But we didn't trust them so we demonstrated anyway," and eventually, the Liberals publicly promised to incrementally increase federal AIDS funding to $84.4 million per year from 2004 to 2009.
While Binder was crusading in 2002 for Tenofovir, a new Health Canada-approved AIDS drug not approved in Ontario, she was contacted by the Hospital for Sick Children.
The Harris government refused to pay for common childhood vaccines for children with AIDS, she said.
One hundred kids were affected at a cost of $100 per child, but they wouldn't pay for them because they said they don't pay for anyone, she said.
"I met with Tony Clement's officials in his office and said, 'Pay for these drugs and get us Tenofovir, too, and I'm not kidding.'" Binder said. "I never bluff."
For two months, Clement's office kept putting her off.
When nothing happened, she held that press conference. By the end of the day, Clement announced he was going to pay for those vaccines and the next day, Tenofovir was placed on the Ontario Drug Formulary, she said.
For that, Binder was awarded the 2004 Order of Ontario, one of many accolades.
From the beginning, her philosophy has always been: "As long as one person with HIV is not safe on this planet, none of us is safe," she said.
"No strategy to eradicate HIV can be successful unless it is comprehensive, appropriately funded and takes into account gender inequality and power imbalances between men and women."
