Liberals Confirm Giant Surplus

[Mike F]

The Federal government confirmed that the Liberal government bumbled it's way to a $9.1 billion dollar surplus Link

"Consistent with generally accepted accounting principles, the $9.1 billion has been applied to reduce Canada's federal debt," said a news release from Finance Minister Ralph Goodale.

That debt stood at $501.5 billion at the end of March, down by $61.4 billion from its peak in 1996-97.

Wednesday's release noted that the federal debt as a proportion of the total economy is down to 41.1 per cent, compared with a peak debt-to-GDP ratio of 68.4 per cent in 1995-96

[arsenal]

How??
Me thinks they got ahold of Enron's accountants

[Cowperson]

If I'm not mistaken, not counting this surplus, the percent of Canada's overall debt being held by foreigners declined from about 40% to about 13% through the Chretien years, meaning Canada went from being grossly dependent on foreigners to basically being able to fund our debt internally.

A remarkable achievement given the corruption and scandals of that decrepit government.

Cowperson

[nfotiu]

Interesting that our debt per capita is now significantly lower than the US. It doesn't seem so long ago that the opposite was true. Ours has really stabilized and gone down a bit, while the Americans is ballooning. Now they are going to go through some of the same pains we went through. Maybe I'll be moving back soon!

[Bend it like Bourgeois]

Originally posted by nfotiu@Oct 13 2004, 08:33 AM
Interesting that our debt per capita is now significantly lower than the US. It doesn't seem so long ago that the opposite was true. Ours has really stabilized and gone down a bit, while the Americans is ballooning. Now they are going to go through some of the same pains we went through. Maybe I'll be moving back soon!

I'm curious fotiu, did your numbers include provincial and state debt? If they did then its very interesting that we'd be below the US, since our debt to GDP including provinces and states is still much higher.