PHAC Strategic Plan: Information, Knowledge, Action
is a high-level policy document to guide the implementation of PHAC's strategic objectives through detailed business and human resources plans. The next step will be to identify targets and deliverables to provide a link between the priorities and the concrete steps that will be taken to deliver on them over the next five years. These targets will set the Agency on track toward its strategic outcome of healthier Canadians, reduced health disparities and a stronger public health capacity.

The Agency's planning cycle will link human resource, business, financial and strategic planning more closely. The process will begin early with the setting of annual priorities based on environmental scanning, demographic analysis, public health evidence, and emerging issues and challenges. The second phase will begin with business planning around each Program Activity Architecture (PAA) 4 outcome; the PAA will serve as a tool to elaborate on the priorities outlined in the Strategic Plan. The third phase will include the development of planning tools for central agencies and Parliament, such as the Report on Plans and Priorities and the Sustainable Development Strategy. During the final phase, service level and performance agreements will be finalized and human resources plans will be completed. It is in the integrated business and human resources plan that accountabilities for results will be clearly assigned. Delegations will be regularly reviewed, managers will oversee performance and individual and corporate commitments will be aligned.

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PHAC's Strategic Plan is the core document for PHAC's new integrated approach to planning. In implementing this Strategic Plan, the Agency will strive to balance priorities with resources. While the Plan sets out a five-year vision, PHAC will re-evaluate its priorities annually and adjust them as required to ensure that the Agency continues to anticipate and respond to the health needs of Canadians.

We can never predict with absolute certainty what will lie ahead, but we cannot let this uncertainty deter us from planning. With this in mind, we set out to plot a course toward a vision for the Agency that would allow us to deliver on our mandate to Canadians. We can imagine a time five years from now, when we will be afforded the opportunity to reflect back on the plan that we wrote in 2007. It is our hope that we will see that not only did we have the right vision and plot the right course, but that we followed that course, respecting and delivering on priorities and commitments to Canadians. Above all, we hope that we will have exceeded the standards that we set for ourselves and that we will have created an Agency that makes a significant contribution to reduced health disparities, strengthened public health capacity and improved health for all Canadians.

Myrna Majano works in the area of child and maternal health at PHAC. She tracks emerging issues and trends which impact on community projects in Manitoba and facilitates communication between PHAC, the province, and other stakeholders.

Dr. Frank Plummer is the Scientific Director General of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, the Director General of the Centre for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, and Chief Science Advisor to the CPHO. Dr. Plummer was named an Officer of the Order of Canada, recognizing his invaluable contributions to global health.

4 The Program Activity Architecture (PAA) is a program inventory that hierarchically links all of the Agency’s programs to the Agency’s strategic outcome.

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