David Garmaise

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1947–2020   

David Garmaise was an activist and a writer, an analyst and a critic. He was at the forefront of the gay liberation movement Ottawa in the 1970s and 80s. He was a member of Gays of Ottawa and the main spokesperson for the National Gay Rights Coalition.

In the 90s, he worked passionately as the Director of the Canadian AIDS Society, and then went on to become the managing editor of the HIV/AIDS Policy and Legal Clinic Network Review.

In 2005, living in Thailand, he began a 15-year career with AIDSPAN, which had as its mission to reinforce the effectiveness of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. During that time, he authored about a thousand articles and edited a thousand more. His colleagues say his knowledge of the Global Fund was encyclopedic, his memory intimidatingly accurate and his perfectionism in getting the facts right unrelenting.