Images per theme. Each issue covers one theme in three images, in this order: the chart, the Party Scoreboard and the PM Scoreboard. A theme can add a chart of the yearly change right after the first (the total tax burden and the Canadian dollar do) and a second PM Scoreboard at the end (the Canadian dollar ranks Prime Ministers both by the yearly change and by the average level), for up to five images. Social posts show the same images in the same order, except that X takes at most four (the Canadian dollar's X post leaves out the yearly-change chart). Gasoline and immigrants use the standard three images, with the PM Scoreboard ranked by the average level (price, or immigrants per 1,000 residents). Each image's title gives the years it counts: from 1925, or from the first year with data (the total tax burden's data start in 1926, so its yearly change and both scoreboards start in 1927); the PM Scoreboard starts with the first year counted for the earliest term it includes (1920 for Arthur Meighen, where the data go back that far). Time in office is the exception: the timeline chart and its Party Scoreboard count whole terms, including years before 1925, so Mackenzie King's first term counts from 1921 (see Party Scoreboards below).
Which party gets each year. Each calendar year goes to the party, and the majority or minority status, that held federal office for the most days of that year. Majority or minority status changes on election day (a general election or a by-election), or when members crossing the floor move the governing party above or below half the seats in the House of Commons. The current year stays provisional until one party and status has held office for more than half of it.
Prime Ministers. Dates run from the day a Prime Minister was sworn in to the day the next one was sworn in, as listed by the House of Commons.
Dollars. Money amounts from different years are converted to constant dollars of the latest full year of data (now 2025) with the Consumer Price Index from Statistics Canada (Table 18-10-0005-01, annual average). Each chart says which year's dollars it uses. Economic output (GDP) is the exception: it uses Statistics Canada's own inflation-adjusted series, with the economic historian M.C. Urquhart's estimates for growth before 1926, shown in constant dollars of the latest year. Shares, such as the total tax burden (all taxes as a share of GDP), need no adjustment: both parts are in the same year's dollars. The Canadian dollar's value in US cents is adjusted for inflation in both countries, with each country's Consumer Price Index (for the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' index for all urban consumers), and shown at 2025 prices; Canadian prices alone would not work for the price of one currency in another.
Party Scoreboards. Averages and medians use every year that has data, split by the party in office that year. A row whose label limits the years, such as the Canadian dollar's "Without fixed-rate years" or "Since 1971", gasoline's "Since 1986" rows, or immigrants' "Since 1946" rows, counts only those years. Nothing is estimated to fill gaps, with one labelled exception: Statistics Canada has measured the national price of regular gasoline only since 2006, so earlier prices are estimated from its gasoline price index and drawn as a dashed line; yearly changes are measured in every year. Figures are rounded to one decimal place, or to two for yearly changes in percentage points (the total tax burden). On the timeline's Party Scoreboard, the rows on time as Prime Minister (average time, longest consecutive term and longest total time) count each Prime Minister's full time in office, including years before 1925 for Arthur Meighen and Mackenzie King, with the current Prime Minister counted to the date on the image.
PM Scoreboards. Each term is a row, and a Prime Minister with more than one term also gets a combined row. Whole terms count, including the years before 1925 for Arthur Meighen (from 1920) and Mackenzie King (from 1921) where the measure has data for them. Each year counts in proportion to the days in office that year, and a combined row pools its terms, so a longer term counts for more. A term with no data for the measure has no row; a combined row then pools and names only the terms with data (on the total tax burden, Mackenzie King, terms 2 and 3). On rankings of a measure such as inflation, rows with less than one year of data are listed at the bottom without a rank; the time-in-office ranking ranks every row. Rows that show the same rounded figure share a rank. Rankings run from the lowest figure to the highest, except GDP per capita and the Canadian dollar, which rank the highest figure first; time in office runs from longest to shortest. A rank puts the numbers in order. It does not show who caused them.
Comments. The right-hand column of each PM Scoreboard names events only. An event is listed when official statistics, the Bank of Canada, parliamentary records or peer-reviewed research tie it to that theme's numbers during that term. For a measure such as inflation, the source must also show that the event mattered: it moved a year's figure by about half a point or more, or the source names it a main driver or a major shock. The same test applies to every Prime Minister, so some rows are blank. For the total tax burden, the column names the same recessions and shocks as for GDP per capita and no tax changes, because official cost estimates do not size every measure on one basis; the issue describes the largest tax changes instead. For the Canadian dollar, the column names the changes to the exchange-rate system that took effect in the term (the return to gold, the 1931 ban on gold exports, fixed rates, pegs and floats, 1926 to 1970), dated by the Bank of Canada's history of the dollar (the day of the 1949 devaluation by the International Monetary Fund and Statistics Canada); no rate has been fixed or pegged since 1970. For gasoline, the column names the federal charges on fuel itself (the excise tax and the federal fuel charge) and the start, overhaul and end of federal crude price controls that took effect in the term; sales taxes such as the GST are left out for every term. For immigrants, the column names the federal laws, regulations, orders in council, levels plans and ministerial public policies that changed who could be admitted as a permanent resident or how many, counted in the term in which they took effect (a levels plan in the term in which it was tabled); rules for temporary residents, citizenship, fees and settlement funding, agreements and contracts, and refugee numbers set by announcements with no regulation or plan behind them are left out for every term. Comments give context. They do not assign credit or blame.
Immigrants. The immigrants measure counts people granted permanent residence each calendar year, including those already living in Canada on temporary status, per 1,000 residents. It is the only official count of immigrants that runs back to the 1920s; temporary residents are not in it until they become permanent residents.
Events. The timeline marks major events. Charts of a single measure, such as inflation, mark only events tied to that measure. Markers give context. They do not assign credit or blame.
Sources. Statistics Canada data are used under the Statistics Canada Open Licence. Each image built on Statistics Canada data carries the full notice: Adapted from Statistics Canada, [table] (released or retrieved [date]). This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.
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