Twenty years ago a core group of gay activists and health care workers organized the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) to provide support and information to a panicked population. Twenty years later the panic has disappeared, but the organization is still going strong. “The early labelling of AIDS as a ‘gay plague’ persists today,” community leader Michael Lynch said in 1983 during the initial organizing meeting. Lynch, a University of Toronto professor of English who became chair of ACT's Board of Directors, added: “The myth that gays are the villains, infecting the pure ‘general population,’ also continues, suppressing the appalling fact that we are the main sufferers of a horrendous disease.”
Just over 2 weeks later, on July 19, 1983, ACT was officially announced to the world. Front and centre at the televised press conference was 28-year-old Peter Evans, a stage designer and the first Canadian to go public about his battle with the syndrome. (When he died 6 months later, Evans was the 35th Canadian reported to have died of AIDS. Recent Health Canada data [November 2002] indicate that 13 357 deaths in Canada had been attributed to HIV/AIDS by the end of 1999.)
Today ACT is the largest AIDS service organization in the country, with the equivalent of 42 full-time staffers and an annual budget of more than $5 million. Over 65% of its revenue comes via fundraising.
More than 18 330 cases of AIDS have been reported in Canada so far, and the peak year for reported AIDS-related deaths — 1477 — was 1995. By 2001 that had dropped to 431 deaths.
But Executive Director Lori Lucier foresees a long-term role for the organization. She says ACT continues to do outreach and prevention work, and to support smaller AIDS-service organizations that serve specific communities. ACT programs, says Lucier, will continue “to fill the gaps and address people's needs.” — Ann Silversides, Toronto