Renewing Canada's Strategy : Introduction : Part 1 : Part 2
On December 1, 1997 - World AIDS Day - the Honourable Allan Rock, federal Minister of Health, announced the renewed Canadian Strategy on HIV/AIDS. The Minister's announcement followed an intense policy development process that centred around a two-month national consultation on the future direction of HIV/AIDS programming in Canada.
The resulting consultation process was a major breakthrough in public policy development. For the first time, stakeholder groups primarily community groups (NGOs) led a process to gather public input on a health and social issue of national and international importance. Instead of imposing policy from the top down, government acted as a facilitator and a listener. As a result, the new Canadian Strategy on HIV/AIDS is a true partnership initiative and the beginning of a new era in HIV/AIDS programming. The urgent need for the strategy's renewal was driven by a number of factors, including:
The federal consultations leading to the renewed strategy were marked by three characteristics:
Part I of this report describes:
Part II provides a qualitative assessment of the consultations based on interviews with key participants and recipients of the process.