Conservative ideologues share one important characteristic internationally, they believe in stigmatizing people with AIDS. Like his collegue to the south, President George Bush who sent his wife to UNGASS to put a kinder, gentler face on the wasted resources and missed opportunities of his HIV/AIDS policies, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is snubbing 25,000 public health professionals and AIDS prevention advocates who are gathering in Toronto for the International AIDS Conference.

One Canadian who works in the KwaZulu/Natal region of South Africa tells of her life and work there, making the case for the PM to attend. The contrast in her powerful story, and Harper's failure to make an appearance when the world has come to his country to do this important work, is stark.

While conservatives are learning to say the right things about HIV and AIDS, after 25 years of silence, it's really about doing the right thing. The G8 promises are hollow without action and those who have been doing this work for decades have a few things to teach conservative leaders about just what stigmatizing people and the disease has done to help spread it, not curtail it.

Its a shame the the US official delegation is loaded with people whose ideology makes them closed to the realities of the pandemic and what it takes to stop its spread, and that the Canadian Prime Minister, like his friend President Bush, coninues to stigmatize people with AIDS.