Clinton told a panel discussion dubbed as a "double-Bill," "It's a breathtaking human tragedy...it's unacceptable."
Clinton told CTV.ca, "I want to stop people from dying and to give these countries a chance to have a future."
The former President added, "Having a treatment program that's broadly accessible does start to change the dialogue because then you have healthy people out in the community ideally talking about their status and saying `If you get tested, you can get the drugs'."
Gates, who recently donated $500 million US to the fight against HIV/AIDS, told the panel, "We really can't achieve the goals of giving these countries a chance unless we address this epidemic."
Chanting protesters held up signs saying, "Fight AIDS, Fund Health Care Workers Now."
Actor Richard Gere spoke on Monday with his description of the threat of AIDS as "the true terrorist on the planet today."
Gere told CTV.ca, "In India the incident rate is hovering at around one per cent...If we can keep that level, there's a good possibility that we're not going to see 10 million or 20 million more Indians die, so that's the reason why we do this work."
Gere spoke about his personal choice: "I'm not a 26-year-old boy anymore and I look at my life and I have to make some hard decisions of what I can be effective at and be meaningful at with the remaining years that I do have. I distilled that down to several subjects and probably the most important to me was HIV/AIDS."
Louise Binder, of Blueprint for Action on Women and Girls said, "Violence against women and girls, poverty, lack of education and housing, and lack of property rights, all fuel HIV/AIDS infection rates among women and girls"
With regard to women, Gates said, "No matter who she is or what she does, a woman should never need her partner's permission to save her own life."
