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This study examines the effect of incorporating taxation into the incumbency voting model using aggregate economic data for Canadian federal elections from 1953 to 1988. Although Canadian election campaigns tend to be dominated by economic performance issues, taxation, as measured by open-ended questions in the national election studies, has not been a salient campaign issue among voters. None the less, voters as consumers in the market economy have an interest in government policies that affect after-tax income. Furthermore, as economic citizens, voters have an interest in taxation as a measure of government efficiency – the costs of providing public services – independent of benefits generated by government. Paralleling American and British results, the economic and fiscal performance variables behave as expected in the incumbency model. Income change has a positive effect, and the rate of inflation and unemployment a negative effect, on incumbency voting. The relationship between taxation and incumbency voting is negative, both through its effect on after-tax income and also directly, independent of income. The results are consistent with an interpretation which suggests that voters, responding to the public agenda for economic performance and to a private agenda for taxation, behave both as politic consumers and as economic citizens.

AbstractThis study examines the retrospective economic voting model for Canadian federal elections, 1930 through 1979. The analysis shows that change in personal or disposable income has a significant, direct impact on incumbency voting while inflation enters the voting calculus indirectly, as a (partial) deflator of nominal income, and unemployment has no effect. Disposable income is a better predictor of incumbency voting than is personal income, nominal income variables predict better than real values and variability in income performance is negatively related to incumbency voting. The study concludes that voter attribution of responsibility for income performance is focussed and specific, income stability as well as income growth are demanded through incumbency voting, and voters are affected by money illusion.