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'I am the Canadian dream," says Julio Montaner.

It is not braggadocio. Rather it is an expression of love for his adopted country from a man who wears his heart on his sleeve.

"What other country in the world would give a poor Latino guy like me the opportunities I've had? It's unbelievable really. It makes me humble and it makes me proud," the director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV-AIDS, said in an interview.

Dr. Montaner came to Canada in 1981, having just graduated from medical school in Argentina. He spoke barely a word of English but Jim Hogg, a researcher at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, was so impressed by his passion and enthusiasm during a brief chat at a conference that he offered Dr. Montaner a job. Well, "job" may be a bit of an exaggeration: It was a one-year contract to do postgraduate studies on top of the gruelling hours he needed to put in as a resident, all for very little pay.

Like so many newcomers to Canada though, Dr. Montaner parlayed that modest start into a blue-ribbon career.

Now he has a new job: president of the International AIDS Society, one of the most high-profile and politically charged positions in the medical world.

The role, which was confirmed at the end of the 17th International AIDS Conference in Mexico City on Friday, seems custom-made for him. After all, Dr. Montaner is one of the most respected researchers in the HIV-AIDS field.

The little research project he started in 1981 involved pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), an obscure illness that soon became a tell-tale sign of a frightening new syndrome called gay-related immune deficiency (GRID). Later, it was renamed acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS.

The young Dr. Montaner started treating PCP with corticosteroids, which soon became a life-saving treatment worldwide. He worked on the first clinical trials for zidovudine (AZT), a drug that was the standard treatment for more than a decade, and helped pioneer the use of antiretrovirals, so-called drug cocktails that have dramatically extended the lives of patients with HIV-AIDS.

Dr. Montaner also helped create a robust structure for research and clinical trials and helped make the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV-AIDS an international leader in the field, and St. Paul's Hospital one of the best treatment sites in the world. Most recently, he has championed Insite, the controversial safe-injection site in Vancouver.

The latter has earned him some criticism, particularly from federal Health Minister Tony Clement, who said Dr. Montaner and his colleagues have crossed the line from being scientists to being advocates and activists.

Dr. Montaner is unapologetic.

"Yes, we're advocates - advocates for the fruits of our research and advocates for science," he says. "Those who don't advocate for implementation of approaches that work, those who don't speak up for their patients, are irresponsible and cowardly."

And speak up he does. In a fiery speech at the AIDS conference's closing ceremonies, Dr. Montaner called on the world to work more resolutely to combat the global epidemic of HIV-AIDS. Failure to do so, he said, is tantamount to a crime against humanity.

Strong words, but Dr. Montaner stresses that the world has learned much about HIV-AIDS, including its causes, its treatment and how to effectively prevent its spread. What matters now is action.

"Personally, I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing and hope it makes a difference. I'm thinking perseverance will pay off."