What to Expect from Toronto’s Poverty Reduction Strategy: Lessons from the Global South
Abstract
Abstract
Poverty reduction strategies (PRSs) have proliferated across Canada in recent years at different levels of government. In this article, we address the question of what may reasonably be expected of such strategies, in particular the city of Toronto’s PRS, drawing on the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper experience in the Global South. We argue that key limitations related to the tight fiscal environment in which these strategies have been implemented, their very heavy weighting on the social sectors, and the fact that they are often simple compilations of existing public programs and policies with minimal prioritisation make it highly unlikely that large-scale reductions in poverty will result. Their most important contribution is political, and their impacts on poverty are likely to be positive but modest.
Résumé
Les stratégies de réduction de la pauvreté de différents ordres de gouvernement ont proliféré partout au Canada au cours des récentes années. Les auteurs se demandent ce qu’il est raisonnable d’espérer de ces stratégies, en particulier de celle de la Ville de Toronto, compte tenu de l’expérience du Document de stratégie pour la réduction de la pauvreté dans l’hémisphère Sud. Ils font valoir que les limitations importantes liées au contexte de restrictions budgétaires dans lequel elles ont été mises en œuvre, au fardeau très lourd qu’elles imposent aux secteurs sociaux et au fait qu’il s’agit souvent de simples compilations de politiques et de programmes publics existants, sans grand effort pour établir les priorités, font en sorte qu’il est peu probable que ces stratégies donnent lieu à des réductions appréciables de la pauvreté. Leur apport le plus important est d’ordre politique, et leurs répercussions sur la pauvreté sont susceptibles d’être positives quoique modestes.
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Canadian Public Policy
Volume 45 • Number 4 • December 2019
Pages: 483 - 496
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Published ahead of print: 20 September 2019
Published in print: December 2019
Published online: 5 December 2019
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Canadian Public Policy 2019 45:4, 483-496
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