Policy or Window Dressing? Exploring the Impact of Poverty Reduction Strategies on Poverty Rates among the Canadian Provinces

Poverty reduction strategies (PRS) have become a popular instrument for addressing poverty globally. In Canada, all ten provinces have committed to adopting PRS. The province’s commonalities and differences provide an ideal testing ground for studying their effects. Do PRS actually reduce poverty? According to their detractors, governments use PRS as ‘window dressing’ to gloss over unsuccessful poverty reduction efforts. In this study, I identify the timing of the introduction of PRS action plans and explore whether they have coincided with changes in provincial poverty rates. I find that more often than not rates have dropped before rather than after the introduction of PRS. This suggests that governments have indeed used PRS as window dressing, but to showcase and claim credit for poverty reduction successes.