Voter turnout has declined across established democracies, which has been accompanied by an increase in turnout disparities along class lines. In contrast to most advanced democracies, class voting has largely been neglected in Canada. Using the entire series of the Canadian Election Study (1965–2021), this article examines the turnout gap in Canada over time by class, education, and income, and whether the offerings of political parties impact these relationships. Results find major class-based participatory inequalities, which have worsened over time. The magnitude of the turnout gap between lower and higher socio-economic status (SES) individuals has mainly been driven by the demobilization of lower-SES individuals and a significant factor is the reduced saliency of economic issues in the party system. The findings contribute to our understanding of how economic inequalities translate into political inequalities and show that rising turnout inequality between politically relevant cleavages, represents a deterioration of democratic representation.

Local candidates seeking to personalize their campaigns and build affinity with target voters may highlight particular aspects of their identities within campaign communications. One such aspect they may reference is their class background. For example, campaign materials frequently mention a candidate's occupational or educational background in order to build rapport with the electorate and indicate shared status, interests or values. This article compares the self-presentation of class identity among political candidates in the 2022 Ontario and Québec provincial elections. We code 976 online candidate biographies to assess how class background is referenced and examine the impact of variables such as party affiliation and riding demographics on self-presentation of class status. We further compare campaign biographies with data on candidates’ class backgrounds separately sourced from news reports and social media (LinkedIn). This allows us to determine which elements of class identity candidates choose to highlight, downplay or embellish in their campaign biographies.