Tories announce $13.8B surplus, hint at tax cuts

The Conservative government announced a greater-than-expected budget surplus on Thursday. Ottawa posted a $13.8 billion surplus last year, significantly higher than the $9.2 billion dollar surplus predicted earlier this year.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told CTV's Mike Duffy Live that record corporate profits are the prime reason behind the increased government revenues.

Flaherty added that the government will reduce personal taxes, but the additional money will also be used to pay down the national debt.

"Paying down debt is paying off tomorrow's taxes," he said. "And this is saying to the younger generation today... that we're not going to pass on this huge mortgage to you."

Ottawa reduced the national debt last year by more than $14 billion to $467 billion -- resulting in an annual savings of $750 million in interest payments.

Flaherty said that the government has reduced personal and income taxes, consumptions taxes through a cut in the GST, and excise taxes.

"There's more to do. Canadians are still over-taxed, so we'll do more," he said.

Commenting on CTV's Mike Duffy Live following Flaherty's interview, the head of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said "the real question is whether we're going far enough, fast enough" when it comes tax cuts.

But the tax break from the $740 million savings will only save Canadians as little as $30 each. Some critics say the government should have used the entire $14 billion to slash taxes instead of only giving back the savings from interest payments.

"That is really just gouging Canadians for no reason, and this money would be better left in the hands of families," John Williamson of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation told CTV News.

Perrin Beatty, who has previously said the government should focus on income tax relief before further reductions to the GST, said the government needs to focus tax cuts on areas that will help the poor and Canadian businesses.

"Our priority from the point of view of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce is that we focus on taxes which will improve productivity in Canada or ones that will give the most direct relief to lower income Canadians," said Beatty.

The federal Liberals, meanwhile, slammed the Tories for slashing programs, such as women's groups and literacy programs. Liberal finance critic John McCallum accused the Conservatives of deceiving Canadians in their budgeting after promising during the 2006 election to forecast surpluses accurantely and close to the bone.

"If you take the 2005 version of Stephen Harper at his word, then today's Stephen Harper has just admitted that he is running an unaccountable government by deceiving Parliament about the size of the federal surplus," said McCallum.

Saskatchewan's Minister of Finance, Pat Atkinson, reacted to the news on Thursday calling Harper a "stubborn" man for funneling the budget surplus into debt reduction rather than applying the funds to contested equalization payments for the province.

"We need him (Harper) to honour his election promise to our citizens in order for us to continue in a very positive way to contribute to the economic well-being of Canada. And he needs to get that message," Atkinson said.

Saskatchewan's NDP Premier Lorne Calvert contends Harper promised to remove non-renewable natural resource revenues from the equalization formula, but instead capped the amount of funding a province can receive under the program.

The premier has told his provincial Justice Department to sue the federal government to challenge the constitutionality of the reforms.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the economy's strong performance does not mean Canada can now become complacent, but instead must continue to be economically prudent. He pointed out that Canada's forestry and manufacturing industries are facing challenges.

Flaherty added the Conservative government is paying down debt for the sake of future generations. But Tory insiders told CTV News the prime minister will hold out the promise of big tax cuts in next month's Throne Speech, which could well turn into a potential vote grabber for the Conservatives if the government is toppled.

CTV's Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert FIfe said Harper is ready to go to the voters with a broadly-based tax cut, if he's defeated.

In Ottawa, election fever is "very high," said Fife. And because the Bloc Quebecois and NDP are most likely to vote against the Oct. 16 throne speech, it's up to a "very badly divided" Liberal party.

Some Liberal MPs told CTV News they would either miss the vote on the throne speech because they plan to be "sick," while others are pushing Liberal Leader Stephane Dion hard to defeat the Harper govenrment.

"People close to Mr. Dion say he keeps changing his mind on whether or not to defeat the government, depending on who he last spoke to -- so stay tuned," said Fife.

Comments are now closed for this story

David
said

Glad to hear we're doing well enough to pay down our debt. It will be nice to someday be as lucky as the Albertans and have NO debt.

In the mean time I refuse to acknowledge any politician's pride in this. As far as I'm concerned they're all preening self important gas bags who should be thrown out with the trash on a regular basis.

You can tell a career politician by who little you notice the lies falling out of his yap every time it hangs open.

Reversals, back biting and denials are endemic to the career politician, who is more spin artist than leader.

Our financial health is not bad, hurray for Canada. Now someone please tell the politico's to just shut up.

CjN
said

Over the years the Feds have off-loaded their contribution to health care (50% down to 14%) onto the Provinces. Nobody feign surprise there's a surplus.
No government has eliminated their debt- oh, wait... Alberta has! It's now gone on a spending binge like a drunk in a casino with a gold card. Looks like they'll have to increase their oil royalties to pay the bills. It shouldn't, however, affect any tax-payers... except everybody at the pump.

I this a preview for the feds when they write their debt off?

stupidCons
said

Mulroney's GST is responsible for eliminating the deficit? Hilarious! a) The GST was introduced in 1990 and the deficit was eliminated in 1997. Nice connection.
b) The GST was not NEW revenue as you Conservatives assume. It REPLACED the Manufacturers' Retail Sales Tax, which was approximately 13% of the value of goods but was hidden in the price of the good, while the GST is visible. The GST may add a few billion more to govt revenues than the MRST but hardly enough to cover a fraction of the $40 billion deficits of the early 90's.
As for Mulroney's brilliant handling of the economy:
a) The 1991 recession in Canada was the first recession in Canadian history that was not caused by an American recession (which didn't even occur at the time).
b) The only instance in Canadian economic history of the Canadian economy NOT going into recession when the US economy receded was in 2000-2001 under Chretien/Martin.
As for the impact of the Free Trade agreement a recent study has indicated that the average Canadian has not seen rise in income from NAFTA while the rich have gotten considerably richer.

earl
said

How do you think the Liberals and present goverment reduced the debt? If it was not for Brian Mulroney's free trade deal and the $35 billion that comes in annually from the GST, we would still be running a deficit. Leave it to the Consertives to get the job done.

Pat B.
said

Great news! Keep up the good work. Look forward to seeing some personal tax relief in the Throne Speech. Now who really wants to bring down a government that is doing it's job?

B. Lang
said

577 Billion still left to pay off. Who exactly do we owe?.

Seems to me that this debt is mainly the responsibility of the voters of the 60's, 70's and 80's better known today as our Senior Citizens. Thank you very much all of you mom's and dad's for putting yourselves first and not thinking about the futures of your kids and grandchildren, how very responsible of you.

Brett
said

Free Trade, NAFTA, and the GST set the wheels in motion for the current surpluses.

All of these were conservative policies.

In addition, the general health of the economy should be given credit. Thank Alan Greenspan for that.

The conservatives have my vote for ensuring the continued health of the economy.

L out West
said

The Liberals do deserve credit for getting the national finances on track but let's remember how they did it. They ran a campaign saying cuts were unnecessary and then slashed the budget in record cut backs to social programs and pushed the burden back on to the provinces who were fiscally hamstrung for a decade. When you reward a govenment for lying to you they'll keep doing it as history proves. Like him or not Harper is straight up.

Robb
said

Harper taking credit for fiscal prudence of the 'old' government. A true Conservative would keep the bold tax cuts of the old government and expand them rather than cutting the GST which is poor economic policy. Fortunately we will never see a Conservative majority. We need a return to Liberal fiscal policy.

Ron
said

It's interesting to view Paul Connell's comments on how Paul Martin and the Liberals are the fiscal giants who are the saviours of Canada. The only reason the cash flows so "liberally" into the federal coffers is because of the much hated GST of the Mulronney years which Chretien vowed to ged rid of if Canadians gave him their vote. Once in power the Liberals realized the significance of the tax and immediately shelved their plans to repeal it (broken promises - a regular Liberal occurrence as we have seen in Ontario). During the Chretien era they were able to spend all sorts of cash on their pet projects provided by cash from the Mulrooney GST. Give us a break the GST is paramount to the surpluses we have today whether the GST is liked or not liked.

Greg
said

It's amazing most of you just attack Harper right off the bat. Did you not read the article...he mentioned a tax cut. But personally I would rather pay off the debt first. GO HARPER!!! I cant wait unti you get a majority!!!!

GL in Montreal
said

Harper better be careful - the more he cuts the deficit, the more the next left wing government that will eventually replace him will be able to spend freely.

Better cut income taxes before it is too late!

Nick
said

For those of you who point to the success of Paul Martin, yes he did an effective job of cutting bloated government programs. Mulroney was saddled with massive deficits by the huge programs that Trudeau implemented. The country couldn't afford it, Mulroney was fought every step in reducing these programs and then brought in the GST to reduce the deficit to finance the ones that couldn't be eliminated. Hypocrisy is that of the Liberals (remove the GST in the 1993 Red Book), not Harper who has always advocated tax cuts for the middle class.

Uwe Warkholdt
said

The Harper Government continues to surprise me pleasantly.

The other parties should be very careful about calling an election too soon. They might end up with "egg on their face"

Bill
said

The surplus has very little do with either government Libs or Cons. It has to do with high commodity prices, G.S.T. Revenue and NAFTA.

And the Liberals had not 1 thing to with any of the above mentioned items.

Yes, Paul Martin cut spending because the World Bank was at our door step, about to declare us a basket case. He had no option. So thanks to Mulroney's GST and NAFTA deal, both of which the Liberals were against, and the Americans are trying to stymie, we rebounded.

I will go along closer to the Conservative program than the left Liberals/NDP/BLOC socialists program of big government spending.

Danny K
said

In 1967 our national debt was approximately 18 billion. Currently our national debt is approximately 577 billion dollars, if the Mulroney Government contributed approximately 50 billion to the debt; it was the Liberal Governments of the late 60s, 1970s and early 80s primarily inspired by PM Trudeau that added more than 500 billion to our national debt...the legacy continues.

wayne
said

I guess we could always hope for another Trudeau or even an NDP led government to help us with that "cumbersome surplus". All the more reason to give Harper a majority government when Ignatief engineers the downfall of Dion.

BOB
said

When Trudeau left office the debt was at $190 b. When Mulroney left it was over $500b.The Stats Can graph I am now lookng at shows the debt as a percent of GDP rising from 1983 to 1994. Ther federal governmaent has downloaded a lot of their costs to the provinces.Federal expenditures have always increased from year to year. Low interest rates for teh last ten years have helped a lot. Just an observation. To say Mulroney's policies were a factor is stretching it.

Brent
said

The Tory government of 1984-1993 ran a surplus before you factor in debt interest. This is because inflation and spending rose very quickly in the 70's. So quickly Trudeau had to rescind his 'no wage & price controls' promise. The Tories introduced the GST shortly before they left office and the tremedous revenue from this was largely responsible for recent debt and deficit reduction. The Tories have cut the GST by 1% with a further 1% to come. Cutting taxes AND reducing the deficit is possible.

Davey Legasse
said

Conservative majority on the way, good economic times, lower taxes, reduced debt for my kids...life is good in Canada.

Matt
said

I can't believe all the people praising Martin for the economy. Look back farther and be a real student of Canadian history. It was Trudeau and his reckless spending/programs that precipitated the Mulroney deficits. It was Mulroney who bit the bullet and created the GST to pay for it. Martin slashed funding in addition to the Mulroney programs. I can admit that the liberals did good work in bringing down the deficit and debt, but when it came to surpluses, the liberals went on a spending spree. As someone who makes under $30,000 I appreciate efforts to be prudent with all our taxpayer dollars. Thank you PM Harper for investing in Canadians.

mike
said

Part of that surplus is because of reduced spending on our infrastructure and part of it because of our high taxes.

So great that we pay down our debt - honnestly.

But long term we will have a recession - which will result in higher taxes - when they never lowered them in boom years + a need to issue tons of new debt just to upgrade decrepid hospitals, roads, schools, military.

all this to say short term political points - for a situation which is no better than before in the long run. At least cut taxes now... and let us allocate our own ressources accordingly.

Joe Soukeroff
said

Give credit where credit is due. All these surplusses are due to the polcicies put in place by the Mulroney government. He inherited a financial mess fron the Trudeau Liberals. He scrapped the NEP, Foreign Investment Review Agency and brought in NAFTA and the GST. Without any of these, Canada would still be a second class country, thanks to Trudeau. And we went back to being a second class country thanks to Chretian and Martin. Canada is against a first class country thanks to Harper.

Joe S

Ed Sportel
said

Talk about political posturing! I am glad that we are in surplus thanks to the polices of Paul Martin and team from a decade ago. Please give credit where credit is due.

md
said

Let's get realistic about who is to credit for the surpluses. Surpluses occur when we have a stronger economy that anticipated. Yes, fiscal responsibility by Paul Martin, and continued by the Conservatives is good. Martin was able to do it because the economy was doing well. If the Canadian economy was not performing as well as it was, he wouldn't have had surpluses either. However, no one should be laying the Canadian national debt on Brian's front door. This trend started back in the early 70s. Canada is one of the few countries that is paying down its debt, and before we start shouting for tax releif, we should consider that there is still a great deal of debt to pay down and not just Federally, Provincially as well.

Dave
said

The Harper government's announcement of this surplus is indicative of the strength of the Canadian economy over the past year. It ended up larger than the projected budget surplus, and really, no government should be trying to achieve $14B surpluses. This is not due to over taxation, but is thanks to the way our economy has been faring.

I think the government should be applauded for sticking to its policies and applying this surplus to the national debt. Keep spending consistent with the budget that was passed through Parliament last spring, and use the decrease is payments on the national debt to offer some form of tax relief.

What it comes down to is that there was a budget passed by the House and that should direct the government's spending. Increasing spending on programs now would not be accountable. Leave that for the next budgetary cycle.

Roger T
said

Surplus from the PC announcement today, ALL GONE tomorrow that doesn't involve tax payers. It's all a sham for votes. In the end, money will flow into personal profits and tax payers will lose out whatever they promise. Remember the recent headline 2 days ago "The Rich get richer, the poor stays poor"!

Norm
said

I don't recall ever - such a response on your website to a political story such as this one.

It's amazing and obviously the announcement made this morning about our surplus has touched a nerve.

However, am I may be somewhat naive in making such a suggestion, but rather than blame the Conservatives, the Liberals and taking aim at the NDP as "extravagant spenders", let's celebrate the news that our country is emerging as a leader and significant force on the world stage - not because of its military might, nor because of exclusionary policies that fail to open its doors to the richness of immigrants who chose to live here - but because of who we are,what we stand for and the gift of our vast resources that are now in such high demand and that makes our standard of living something to behold.

Today is a day to Stand Proud Canada.

Mike
said

I smell an election around the corner!!

JF
said

The only good thing about Trudeau is that he put Canada on the map and actually had the nerve to stand up to the US. Otherwise, he is primarily to blame, along with his baby boom generation for the rising CPP you'll never see and the huge national debt... money now that our so called surpluses have to pay for! But then again if Harper and gang saw at least a $9B surplus coming why no REAL tax cut... don't see any big difference between them and the Fiberals.

Jason
said

Seriously.

The turnaround of the countries finances are 80% because of the fiscal policies (GST, FTA) that Mulroney brought in. You may remember those policies were hugely unpopular and cost the Conservatives their government but in the long term it was a good thing.

Along came Martin and Chretien who kept these policies after promising to scrap them. Martin then sped the whole process up by making massive cuts to transfer payments and social programs. Trudeau gets us into debt in the first place and Martin slashes social funding yet people still think the Libs are some sort of icons, amazing.

Harper should be congratulated. Not for the surplus or building this great economy but for putting the money directly on the debt where it belongs. If Layton had his way it would all be spent.

Jason Toronto
said

It's funny how all these liberal supporters say we should be thanking Paul Martin. You mean the guy who was finance minister in the last government. The guy who was the chief in charge of taxpayers dollars. The guy who should know where all are hard earned tax dollars are going. But yet it was on his watch, with his government, with his party we had the sponsorship scandal. Where millions of dollars went missing or were given out for nothing! With all due respect most politicians don't walk a straight line but to give those arrogant crooks called liberals any credit I think not!!!!!!

Darren
said

With this kind of a surplus there is no reason why the federal government can't address real tax relief for working families. The first measure should be income splitting which would allow families with one income the same taxation as families with two incomes.

R.P.
said

This is great news, but to all those praising the Liberals and Martin for these debt reductions you need to consider something that Flaherty said...

"Over the past two years the federal debt has fallen by an amount equivalent to $1,142 for every and each Canadian"...well since our population is about 33 million, that works out to more than $33 billion in debt reduction in the last 2 years of Conservative rule. Which means that of the $90 billion erased from Canada's debt in the last 11 years, the Conservatives are responsible for more than one third of that in only 2 years (an average of $16 billion per year)...while the Liberals took 9 years to erase the other two thirds (an average of approx. $6 billion per year). Kind of makes you wonder what the Liberals were really spending our money on...oh yeah...the sponsorship scandal...

Tom
said

Paul Martin to thanks!!!!!!!!
Maybe a little history lesson here folks. Remember Mulroney and Wilson, the creators of the GST. These Conservatives set the stage for Surpluses to help pay down the debt, many years ago, and it was the Liberals who defeated them for this with the promise to eleminate the GST, and won, but kept the GST. (I beleive it was the cornner stone of the liberal platform, contained in the red book) Soooooooooo, who set the stage for debt payback, certainly not the liberals, they ran on the coat tails of Mulroney and Wilson, and did nothing but steal the surpluses for their pet projects, remember the sponsorship deals.

Craig
said

I'm not understanding how all the Liberal supporters can ignore the fact that Paul Martin and good ol' JC rode PC policies (read: Free Trade & GST) towards their initial surpluses... despite having promised to eliminate both as part of their election promises. Brutal. Give credit where it's due: the Conservatives and their PC predecessors have a proven record of financial prudence, and have shown great concern for Canada's future. On the other hand, if you think back a bit further, it was another Liberal (Trudeau) who started Canada down deficit road. No foresight there, let's face it. I'll go ahead and echo those calls for a majority...

Justin001
said

An earlier poster made reference to the "Mulroney 50 Billion dollar deficit", a ridiculous assertion made by Liberals and duly repeated in the media.

The amount was 42 billion in the final year of the Mulroney gov't, of which 26B was debt financing, and the operational budget of the federal gov't was 19 billion in the black.

The Mulroney gov't, saddled by the Trudeau era deficits, that forced Ottawa to borrow money to pay for basic services like light and heating, turned public accounts from red to black.

And unlike the Chretien / Martin Liberals they didn't simply slash into the EI fund and dump their problems on the provinces.

Anyone with room temperature IQ, knows that the key to our present good fortune lies in Free Trade and the GST...

Both from Mulroney and oppossed by duplicitous Liberals... but only when out of power.

Doug in Calgary
said

To set the record straight: Tax Freedom Day in 1993, just before Chretien became PM, was June 1. TFD in 2005, the last year of the Liberal era was June 26. TFD in 2007 was June 20. Stephen Harper has given Canadians 6-8 days of income, depending on which province they live in, to spend on themselves & their families.

Martin
said

Okay, let's straighten some things out here, because some seem to be ignorant as to why we are where we are.
Mulroney inherited a massive deficit from Trudeau, due to his incompetent economic policies. While Mulroney slowed spending (an important first step) he didn't attempt to reduce it. He DID, however, bring in Free Trade and the GST, two things that are responsible for Canada's economic recovery. People can give Paul Martin some credit for slashing public programs (something the Liberals never let Mulroney get away with) but without the GST and Free Trade it would never have been enough. And those are the facts. Oddly enough, some odd folk still think Free Trade was a disaster...

Look to see income tax relief in the next budget! It's coming!

Dale Sanger
said

Those of you that are blaming the Mulroney Tories, might want to look a little farther back to Trudeau. He was the person who started living in the red to finance his pet projects.

Yes the Liberals (Chretien & Martin) started to turn things around by paying off the debt, and the Conservatives have continued it. But the initial problem came from Trudeau and his governments.

ray
said

Thanking Paul Martin? Only reason he was able to balance the budgets is because of the GST and by the way the mess Mulroney got from PET was far worse than what the liberals got from him.

Mike L
said

The government continues to do the right thing-eliminate debt. In turn, this will allow them to keep cutting taxes, both income and corporate, which improves productivity and our standard of living.

LM
said

Surpluses are not a license for the government to play with our money. The previous Liberal governments always ramped up spending when they had a surplus, and paid down debt somewhat. I'm glad the Conservatives are being, well, conservative with our money. Basic household finance requires us to pay off extra debt before spending more. I like that the government is following this common sense rule, too. We must pay our debt, rather than squander our collective resources, and increasing the size of government just because we can is a form of squandering.

Scott W.
said

You Paul Martin lovers have it all wrong. You should be thanking Brian Mulroney. It was his idea to add the GST to pay down the debt. The Liberals said they would get rid of the GST but they did not. Wonder why? Now that it is working the Conservative Party is lowering it. I doubt the Liberals would have done that.

Alan
said

Why are we congratulating anyone for these surpluses. Ladies and Gentlemen, we are all lending the federal government almost $14 billion in interest free loans coming our of OUR POCKETS. While public transit and our municipalities crumble, the feds are bragging about their excess revenues? What's wrong with this picture? Why are we so stupid that we actually think this is good?

This money should be return to the people in the form of tax cuts and immediate assistance to our municipalities, most of whom are bankrupt! It's not FEDERAL money. It belongs to all Canadians and should be given back to us in services or tax cuts.

Mark
said

Thank Paul Martin??? Thank Mulroney with his GST and Free Trade deals, that's who started all this business, after Trudeau pretty much ran us into the ground. What did the Liberal$ do with the surpluses...yeah, we don't want to remember that did we. We are finally digging our way out, with a majority we'd have even bigger shovels!!!

John Davis
said

Let us not forget the debts and deficits began with all the social programs the Trudeau era intorduced. Let us also not forget that both free trade and the GST introduced by Mulroney (promised to be scrapped by Chretien until he realized the advantage of having them) started the ball rolling reversing the massive debts and deficits.

CM
said

Since everything is always the Liberals fault, are you going to blame this on them too?

Michael
said

We have Pierre Trudeau to thank for the original wild Lieberal deficits. We have Chretien and Martin to thank for ripping off the health care system of 23 Billion which is why healthcare is so screwed up today.

$14 billion divided by our population and that is how much Harper took off YOUR DEBT account!!

Thank you Mr. Harper, hopefully in my lifetime we will see no national debt and prosperity for all. Debt steals the economic life of a nation and of individuals. The less debt we have the better.

Mark
said

I think the real issue is what the Conservatives are doing with the surplus. Reducing debt and cutting income taxes (I would like to see more of this). If it were the Liberals, the money would be wasted on something nobody wants... like universal childcare and a gun registry that doesn't deter criminals in ANY way. If it were the NDP... well, let's leave fiction to another discussion.

Fair-is-Fair
said

You could go on and on about how which government can take credit for this. And you can poke at almost any government for spending and increasing our dept. Some were worse than others.

IMO, no government can claim responsiblity for the gained revenue, the US economy might have been a factor, and our business leaders had a hand in the success here.

It's only prudent to plan to have surpluses to pay off this dept.
We have to live within our means IMO.

So we certainly have to pay back the credit card P.E.T. maxed out in the 70's, remember that one?

David F
said

Concerning the national debt, here's where it all started-Trudeau. Before he came along there was no such thing as deficit spending, all you liberals remember that phrase do you. He spent huge sums of money to buy his elections and Mulroney paid the same game, but it was LIBERALS who started your national debt.

Nick
said

Ok so have a surplus this is good. Now lets make it bigger and get rid of the debit faster and Oh while we are at it a little more relief for the taxpayer .
Now some of the comments are critical but I don't care who ends up with a surplus just that we have one. OH by the way yes Mulroney spent to much I agree but that was then and now we have a surplus so a party can change their ways.

Stop the Con
said

This government is littered with lies and misrepresentation, here is another one. People need to ask they are calculating their numbers, especially the CPP, which they are using to fudge numbers.

Rod
said

There is no pleasing some people (Liberals for example)! However I too agree that an income tax reduction should be in the works. We should all be thankful that the economy is strong now but to try to compare the World or Canadian economy that was around in the 80s to now is fool hardy. Let's give the PM and Conservatives the majority so that Canada can really perform.

By the way for those who want to give Paul Martin ALL the credit I wonder how Canada Steamships was affected by the economy and policies of the 80s! Oh wait, most of Paul's ships (that work in Canada) are registered in Liberia!

Alan
said

Get real you Lib lovers.

Harper is an economist and darn good one too. Sure, Martin can take credit for surpluses when he was the Finance Minister. But surpluses aren't carried over... they're annual outcomes. Harper's Conservatives were making the decisions when THIS surplus was created.

Unlike the libs, who courted the NDP support and spent more when surpluses existed, now the ENTIRE SURPLUS + more thas been paid against the national debt. PLUS government spending was $750 million LESS than projected spending - a NONEXISTENT notion under Liberal leaders. Incomprehensible to NDPers.

Hate Mulroney if you must. But, cut the Liberal double-speak and give credit where credit is due.

"You doth protest TOO much" Could it be you see the demise of Liberal spin?

MJ
said

Before you go and give all the credit to Paul Martin let us not forget that it was Brian Mulroney who introduced the GST and the NAFTA agreement that now gives us all the trade surplus therefore budget surplus.

Someone has to make the difficult decisions.

Michele
said

"Ottawa reduced the national debt last year by more than $14 billion"

14 down....446 Billion to go, and you people want tax cuts? Sure I would love to have a tax cut BUT I would rather eliminate the national debt altogether first, so our children/grandchildren/ and great grandchildren are not paying off our debt(and the previous generations). If 14 billion saved us 750 million in interest how much TOTAL interest are we paying; that we could be saving, if the debt was 0. With those figures close to 24 billion on interest alone. Now that would give us one major tax cut. Look at it this way if we got a tax cut it would not be as much as it 'looked' simply because it would be on borrowed money and we would be paying interest on it. Any tax cut before the debt is paid off is on borrowed money.

B.B.
said

Well well, this government isn't so scary after all are they? They actually keep their word, pay off national debt, and in the next budget are going to give more tax savings. It really makes me laugh that people still think Harper has a "hidden agenda"

Darren
said

To be fair to both sides it was first the Conservatives that brought in the GST that allowed the Liberals to enjoy the huge surplus'. Remember the liberals in the 1990s complained about and promised to get rid of the GST. And the Liberals made the cuts we are all aware of on the other side of the ledger.

Justin Russ
said

He said paying down the debt is an investment in Canada's future, and serves as good news "for the taxpayers of our future, our children and grandchildren."

...What he should be focusing his "investments" on is the environment. Otherwise, our grandchildren will all be chocking on polluted air. What a great legacy to pass down to future generations...give me a break!!

Bill in Seattle
said

Carrying on responsibly. Yes the Liberals turned around the atrocious behaviour of the Mulroney government. Yes, Harper is following in their footsteps. Paul Martin deserves much of the credit. But Liberal patronage was sickening. I hope Harper can deliver continued good results without butt kissing in Ontario and Quebec.

JSmith
said

Thanks Mr. Paul Martin.

Jeff
said

Thank you to Dave in Surrey for the hitting the nail on the head and thank you Paul Martin for being able to fix the problem the Tories left the Liberals back in the early 90s.

Richard
said

My understanding is that the annual budget already includes a reasonable debt repayment component. Therefore, it seems to me that tax payers should be entitled to more then just the $750MM tax reduction that will result from the lower interest on the additional debt repayment. It should be more like $14B which is the amount they over taxed us to generate such a surplus.

Mike J
said

Wow some of you guys have issues. He said Canadians should be proud of reducing the debt $90 billion since 1996. That means all Canadians not just Conservatives! He made no claims at all that his party was solely responsible for this great achievement. If you think this was some kind of attempt to take all the credit you have real issues.

Tom Hawley
said

A huge surplus? Wow I thought the Liberals were out of power. Oh,sorry.Just the pot calling the kettle black isn't it?. It is because the Liberal government under Paul Martin that we are chugging along so well.You can take a person and put him/her at the controls while the train is rolling but let people know who the conductor off the train actually was.
Please let me know how much the $100 per month under age seven cost us. Also what proof that it was spent where it was meant. I know cases where it was not used for books or daycare! I would also like to know what happened to all the daycare spaces that were promised.

Tom Smith
said

I do not think that we should be patting anyone on the back. Our total national fiscal condition is a disgrace, in fact, if we can keep up this hectic pace of payments we should be able to pay off our national debt in just over 100 years. Anyone heard of a 100 year mortgage-point me in that direction please!!! Kids, you can be proud of your inheritence and you can all give thanks to our politicians for doing such a fine job!!!

Greg in Kitchener
said

Wow going back almost 20 years to attack Brian Mulroney, let's go even further and blame Trudeau, who was the worst spender in Canadian history.
Liberals and there voters are so desperate, they cannot approve of anything Harper and his party does, they cannot attack Mr. Harper on his record, that is for sure!
To a Harper majority next election!

peter
said

The cons are just riding the wave that the liberal government created under Paul Martin's financial leadership.

Dej
said

Thanks in most part to Brian Mulroney!!

James
said

It's the booming economy and NOT over taxation that has created this surplus.

Another difference between Harper and the Libs is that he is putting the surplus into debt reduction. He is not trying to buy votes like Chretien and Martin did. Any time the Libs were slipping in the polls, they would announce this huge surplus and go on a spending spree with special interest groups to secure their position.

Harper, on the other hand, is keeping his word on fiscal responsibility and accountability. He created a reasonable and balanced budget. When extra revenue came in thanks to a growing economy, he slid it immediately over to the debt.

Mark
said

The only reason Martin had large surpluses is because of the GST imposed by the Mulroney government. Martin's financial successes were a result of Conservative stategy. Hopefully, Harper will soon get the majority he needs to lead the country in the right direction.

Marty
said

This is a good sign that the economy is doing very well and it is also a sign, that we are paying too much taxes. I applaud all governments over the last 14yrs (Chretien, Martin & Harper)for doing an excellent job on getting a handle on the deficit and creating a robust economy. Now it is time for them to start reinvesting that money back into the country starting with Health Care, Education and maybe even a little tax break.

Bartholomew
said

We owe nearly half a Trillion dollars as a nation. Liberals were in government for how long? How many tax cuts did you see on your paycheque then? ZERO. In 1 year Harper already did more than Chretien & Martin did in a decade.

Harper promised to have no surplus spending, which he is keeping by paying off decades of liberal deficits.

Jonny
said

Considering the Conservatives were against such high surpluses and in favour of reducing taxes, why did they have to cut small program spending like Womens and Environment, while still chucking away 1 billion a year to oil companies who are making billions in profit anyway? This Cons government promised to cut taxes but instead raised the basic income tax rate (reminder: it were the Liberals under Martin that lowered it to 15%). A lower income tax rate benefits everyone equally, and largely, while a GST rate cut means nothing to smart spenders, just to very rich people.

If we're going to have these surpluses, let's continue to pay down the debt. Let's just find better ways to find the money than to raise income taxes in order to lower GST, or to cut small program funding in order to give free money to oil companies; hell, if we raised GST and lowered income tax equally, then how much tax Canadians pay would depend much more on them than on the government!

Michael
said

Don't forget that the federal government was also running huge deficits in the 1970s and early 80s courtesy of Trudeau.

Steve
said

If you are going to talk who got us into the debt mess...you had better go back to Trudeau and his Liberal hacks. The ups and downs since then have largely been thanks to global factors, and not as a result of government action (or ineptitude). Frankly it is just unfortunate that Harper does not have a majority with the ability to better focus the country overall as we enjoy this period of terrific growth.

ET
said

Wow, what a surplus! Thanks Paul Martin! Just think guys, all Mr. Harper has done to achieve this is cut out a remarkable day care plan, quietly cut out almost every single environmental program, reduce investments into health care, eliminate funding for people to take cases to court...did I miss anything? Oh yeah, and humiliate Canada on an international stage (Kyoto).

But don't worry folks, the GST got dropped 1%, our military has 50 new tanks to patrol the arctic with, and no attention was paid to any other issue when they decided to just pay down the debt with the entire surplus.

I also find the political timing of this announcement rather disturbing, after the events of the last week. I would hate to see Mr. Harper with a majority, given how much damage he's caused with a minority.

Mikel
said

Make any tax cuts small and lets keep up (or increase) the pace of debt reduction. Surpluses are the main reason we are able to weather the storms of the up and down U.S. economy. Canada's willingness to stick to surpluses and debt reduction benefits us all now, in the short term and mostly definitely in the long term. The stability and the foreign investment it brings far outweigh any instant tax relief. It keeps us in jobs.

Stephen Cook
said

In a minority situation, it would have been easy for the Conservative government to blow the surplus on spending programs all in the name of buying votes for a majority. However, Flaherty and Harper choose a more prudent albeit less flashing option in paying down the debt. Good for them!

Evan G
said

I like how the Harper trolls think this is such a sign of good government. As I said when Martin had his $10+ billion surplus, a huge surplus shows just as bad of budgetary planning as a huge deficit. As the days go on, it is just showing how the Conservative party is inching closer and closer to being exactly like the Chretien Liberals.

Garry
said

Mulroney did not cause our national debt - Trudeau was responsible and Mulroney merely tried to run a country that had been used as an ATM with no limit in order to finance all of Trudeau's social engineering experiments - with interest rates around 20%(!!). Giving Paul Martin total credit is misleading as well since he did what he did with monies garnered from GST and the fruits of NAFTA. Martin also had Preston Manning always bitching about getting our fiscal house in order and Martin pursued that course. I do agree with one poster who wrote that the Canadian Taxpayer should be recognized for something - we are the ones who pay the G-D taxes! At least the current PM's ideology is such that we will continue to keep more of our paycheck with reduced taxes - not by spending the surplus to buy my vote.

Geoff
said

Wow -

it's like waking up to realize you've got the winning 649 jackpot numbers! What are we going to do with our "unexpected" windfall, Mssrs. Harper and Flaherty? Reduce the debt load for Canada's municipalities? Eradicate poverty? Invest in education? Fight global warming? Nah - all a waste of money. Probably best to just sit on it and squeeze us all for more of our hard earned cash. Sit back and pat yourselves on the backs for a job well done. Thanks, Mr. Martin!

Bo
said

Mega deficits of never before seen proportions were invented by Mr. Screwdeau and the Liebrals. Nice to see someone with a backbone is finally trying to do something about it.

Steve
said

It was Trudeau that racked up the debt and ran deficits, Mulroney still ran them but reduced them as a percentage, compared to what PET did. Bringing in NAFTA, cutting the manufacturing tax, and bringing in the GST laid the groundwork for surpluses. Chretien and Martin deserve credit for following through, and now Harper too deserves credit for continuing sound fiscal management.

Doug
said

What a joke to hear Firerals trying to give credit for budget surpluses to Paul Martin.He could raise taxes and shovel money off the truck better than anyone.
Was he the first in a long time to have a budget surplus?Yes,he was that lucky.Fiberals balanced the budget because Preston Manning shamed them into it.I still remember the "debt clock" on the news every day.In fact,I wish it were still there.
Secondly,I might point out,that the Fiberals balanced the budget because they had the money.Why did they have the money,you ask? Because of the revenue generated by the GST,and by growth due to more free trade.Both policies the Fiberals should be thanking the former Conservatives for.
I hated the Mulroney government at least as much as everyone else in Canada.But to give Paul Martin credit is waaaaay too much of a stretch for anyone with more than an ounce of information available to them.

Lillian
said

Do you remember how Paul Martin balanced the books and had surpluses? He cut transfer payments to the provinces leaving them with having to make cuts to things such as health care and education. This is not going to happen under this CONSERVATIVE government!

Charles Hunter
said

The debt is from the Liberal government in the late 70s and early 80s.

It was not until Free Trade and the GST was introduced by the conservatives that allowed for the conditions for sustained economic growth which allowed for the sustained budget surpluses enjoyed by the Liberal governments of the 90s. Both which were strongly opposed by the Liberal opposition when they were introduced.

R Landry
said

I think debts were accumulating under Trudeau, however, Mulroney simply kept the ball rolling. I think Paul Martin had to make some tough decisions but he did a great job balancing the books at a time when Canada's finances were dropping as fast as a bag of wet cement. However, the Conservatives are keeping that surplus ball rolling rather well too. I'm not ready to give the Tories a majority, because it seems to me that a minority government is more accountable. I like the way things are right now. Just keep the surpluses coming.

matt
said

Um, actually it was P Treadeau who increased Canada's spending to the point where Mulroney could only attempt at cutting back, in which he failed. However, his introduction of Free Trade and GST gave Martin and the Liberals the nessesary income to stimulate the economy and increase gov't revenues. Sure the cuts were required but the high revenues are a result of Mulroney's actions.

CH
said

If it wasn't for Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives securing Free Trade and the GST, no Government could have paid a cent towards the debt.

Dave
said

Congratulations to all of you who are smart enough to realize that Harper is just riding on the coattails of a strong economy and a balanced budget created by Paul Martin. All of you right wing bandwagon jumpers need to take a look at what Harper said about the Liberals giving us massive surplus after surplus, and look at what an absoultely huge hypocrite he is.

Derek
said

1. We must give credit to this government for the tax cut guarantee: all the money saved on interest is going to tax cuts. As promised.

2. For the Paul Martin lovers out there, who want to extol the virtues of his time at Finance, can I point out one thing? Martin made spending cuts, but no major shifts in econmoic policy. Brian Mulroney's government, stickhandled by Michael Wilson, made the economic policy changes that allowed the Libs in the late 90s to start raking in surpluses. The GST was a tax replacement (from the old Manufacturers tax) that resulted in higher revenues, and free trade increased our economic activity, resulting in more cash for governments. Mulroney/Wilson introduced the changes that Martin/Chretien simply kept.

3. When Brian Mulroney left office, Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio was lower than it was when he came to office in 84.

That's not rhetoric - that's what happened.

Jeff Holt
said

This is not a true conservative government. It continues to accumulate record budget surpluses and fails to reduce the heavy personal income tax burden but instead works its own political agenda -- exactly what the government accused the Martin Liberals of doing.

They deserve to be booted out of office -- give Dion a majority.

Jeff in Montreal

Dwayne Moholitny - Edmonton
said

Thank you R.H. Paul Martin for planting the money tree during your tenure as finance minister; all Canadians are enjoying the fruits of your Liberal labour.

Annette
said

Finally we have a government that is working for the people.Way to go Mr Harper. Keep up the great work.

Frank from Brampton
said

The deficit is attributed to Prime Minister Mulroney? We quickly forget that when PM Trudeau left office, our defict was running at 8% of GDP. PM Mulroney turned the tide and and reduced it to 4% of GDP when he left office. This is the origin of todays surplus.

Mike B
said

The Conservatives are doing what should be done and that is paying down the dept. If this country is debt free one day we would all benefit.

Unlike the Liberals that would spend this money on stupid leftest ideas where only a small amount of people would benefits like their friends.

People always bash the conservative, but they forget how the liberals stoled from us.. The fact that everyone say they ahve a new leader, they forget that he's was part of chretien gang and was the unity minister. If he did not know this was happening.. how can he be a big leader...

Give the conservative a chance, give them a majority...

Graeme
said

Paying down the debt is a very good thing. Leaving your children financial problems so you can overspend is neither smart nor ethical.

I don't care if you hate Harper and his party, or hate the Liberals, we need to give credit to both of these parties in the last 10 years for doing the right thing. It would be easy to instead use this money to buy votes, but they are taking the route which will help Canada prosper long term.

Rachel H
said

No one in politics is perfect... but Harper is doing a good job. Paul Martin does deserve some of the credit for his contribution, but the Conservative party is more credible on the international front and just has better economic policies. I am willing to support a Harper majority! Well done PM!

Richard
said

I think it is wonderful that the government has paid down $14,000,000,000 of the debt, and that we will indefinitely save $750,000,000 of interest payments. But how big is Canada's debt, and how long will it take to repay it all? Is there a long-term plan in place to do this?

S in Calgary
said

For such a brilliant finance minister, it was truly stunning how bad Paul Martin was the moment he got all the power.

Rob B.
said

I don't understand how people get upset about surpluses. Our national debt, (which by the way was mostly run up by Pierre Trudeau and the Liberals), does need to be payed down. The longer we take to pay it down, the more we end up in paying. Have you ever tried paying your credit card off by only paying the minimum payment?! Kudos to our Prime Minister and his party for putting this country back on track!

aa
said

Harper should thank Paul Martin for this miracle.

yoyoma
said

We have to thank Mr. Martin for this? Okay, for a small part perhaps, but mostly Mr Mulroney for his GST. That's what gave Martin the ability to slash and burn and heap up revenues. Libs said they'd get rid of it, then kept it. For that we can thank Martin.

Dallas Overholt
said

I love how you Liberal lovers on here like to go back to the Mulroney days. Do you really want to play that game because we can easily go back to the crazy spending of Trudeau before him. We finally have a responsible government who aren't thieves and you liberals hate it. I love it!!

Anthony
said

At least there's honesty as to what the surplus amount is unlike the manipulative understatements in the 1990's by the Liberals. However, it is a bit disappointing to see that the Conservatives are continuing the Liberal trend of not offering broad based tax relief.

Jim McB
said

It is time to get the story straight. This country started defecit budgeting under Trudeau. Mulroney recognized the problem and Micheal Wilson brought in the measures that Martin followed including the GST which the Liberals said they would scrap.

Martin savaged National Defence and sucked huge sums out of the individual taxpayer. When the Liberals got to a surplus situation they squandered taxpayers money on programs designed to bolster their election successes.

The Conservatives put all the money towards the debt and have promised that the savings will be passed off to the taxpayer, a prudent plan to my mind.

The sponsorship scandal is proof that the Liberals stole money from the taxpayers, that does not appear to be happening now. TO is broke because you have a socialist mayor who doesn't have a good fiscal record and an indecisive Liberal government that has been foundering.

I wonder if all the lefties remember the last election campaign where fear tactics were employed once again about the Conservatives going into defecit. In fact they have lowered taxes, are spending prudently on well designed and efficient programs and reducing the debt. All of this has taken place while they faced an obstuctinist opposition in a minority parliament. The government and Canadians can be proud of these accomplishments.

Doug
said

Those of you who claim that Paul Martin and the Liberals did all of this, you are correct to a point. Yes Mr. Martin reduced the debt by a large amount. Yes, Mr. Martin brought Canada out of deficit. However, 14 billion this year out of 90 billion total since 1996 amounts to 15.5% of the total amount paid down in one year. This is impressive.

To anyone who is asking where the tax cuts are, they said they're coming... hold tight. You people can't have your cake and eat it too... you want tax cuts, and to get the country out of debt? You have to suffer a little to gain... otherwise its back to deficit budgeting of the 80's.

This Conservative government is not the same PC's that were in power in the 80's... not the same as the ones in the 90's...

Mr. Harper is doing a great job...

Rod
said

Harper is outfoxing Dion ever step of the way. Just when Dion threatens to shut down the government, Harper responds with positive news. Go ahead Mr. Dion, "make my day", bring em down so that next time we can live under a conservative majority.

FN
said

For those of you that keep saying that this is all thanks to Paul Martin (a Liberal), please remember that it was under another Liberal's watch, Prime Minister Trudeau, that the debt WAS STARTED! So I suppose we should be "thanking" the Liberals for getting us into this mess in the first place and for then trying to get us out of it, no?

In any case, as I see it, it is neither thanks to one party or another, one finance minister or another, one PM or another, but THANKS TO US, THE CANADIAN TAX PAYER for shelling out the kind of money we do to FIX the "mistakes" and serious mis-management that SEVERAL governments have brought us.

C.A.
said

Be careful what you wish for - minority governments are far more effective because they can't affort to waste their time on whimsical ideas. Canada's strong economy has absolutely nothing to do with Haper. All it does is give him an easy time to govern in.

Kevin Seesequasis
said

As always, the Liberal legacy shall evermore "Live Long and Prosper"...

Thank you PM CHRETIEN and PM Martin for your outstanding fiscal prudence and fiscal legacy!

Thank you PM Harper for making it abundantly clear that your successes ride on the coat-tails of past 15 years of Liberal SMARTS!

Happy Canadian
said

I don't want the gov't to give hand outs or "do" anything for me. That's how this all got started! Both Liberals (Trudeau) and Conservatives (Mulroney)are principally responsible for this mess.
Both Liberals (Martin as Finance Min) and Conservatives (Harper runs everything)are just paying down the debts created.
If the previous gov't had not been "doing things" for every specialty group or whining interest group, we wouldn't be talking about this at all!
Whoever gets to be in office, keep at reducing this debt and keep the taxes going until it is GONE! Ultimately the taxpayer created this, the taxpayer needs to eliminate it! (Yeah, I'd rather have more money in my pocket too, but this is what happens with buy-now-pay-later plans)

Ryan
said

Harper has cut taxes and the surplus continues to grow... time for more tax cuts, but of the income variety this time.

CK
said

Maybe we should thank Martin and Chretien for not scrapping the GST as they had promised?

Mark
said

Paul Martin is the one who should gete credit for the long run of Surplus budgets in Canada.

It's laughable that Harper supporters use this as 'evidence' of his success. He's just riding the coattails of those before him who did the heavy lifting.

Lorne B
said

Enough partisan bickering already! Both Liberals and Conservatives can take credit for the surpluses (and both can take blame for deficits--remember Trudeau's deficits?). The bottom line is saving $750MM in interest is equivalent to having $750MM more to do whatever the gov't wants (i.e. spending, lower taxes, etc). We should be celebrating as this will improve our future.

Mark
said

I second that motion, after years of self serving politicians we finally get a group that has good principles, great decision making and process and excellent leadership. A majority would only help our Canada.

peter
said

Of course they have surpluses. Paul Martin downloaded so much of the expsenses to the provinces they don't pay for much now.

Peter
said

The real truth: Chretian and his band of liberals cut spending and off loaded the cuts to the provinces who then off loaded to the cities. When the economy improved it was the GST that helped bring Canada to surplus. That is why the Liberals kept it. They simplied lied about cancelling it to win an election. Any party in power will benefit from the GST.

Arif M
said

SK .. you're thanking Harper for this surplus? In reality about 50% is thanks to Paul Martin's years as Finance Minister turning the massive 40 billion per year deficits into consistant surpluses, and the other 50% is thanks to Canada's strong natural resources.

The conservatives have virtually nothing to do with this. In fact .. now that we finally have very large surpluses, now would be the time to invest in Canada's future. Pay down the debt about 10B .. but then spread the extra 4B into development of wind-energy or shortening hospital and operations waiting lists.

JPF
said

Let's face it, despite the rest of the blundering by the liberals, they and Paul Martin are responsible for most of the debt down payement and the condition of this economy. You don't have to look far into the past to find a time when the conservatives were criticizing liberal decisions to pay down debt instead of cutting taxes. Mind you, any party would have done the same in their position, because our politicians when in opposition are more concerned about their own political gains than they are about what's best for the country and it's citizens

Ken
said

As much as I have been very vocal about my absolute disgust with Harper and everything he stands for, this is good news. I don't think he deserves a majority government just because he made one good move though. In fact, I still maintain that he doesn't desrve a majority at all - not now, not ever.

Matt
said

Give it up, Conservatives. There are two reasons why we're producing surpluses.

1) Paul Martin. Harper and Flaherty themselves admit that debt reduction has been going on since '96. Martin was a lousy PM but the architect of the modern Canadian economy.

2) Resources. Oil and trees...we got'em, most places don't. Despite all the talk of the "new economy", Canada's will always be one based in resources, no matter what anyone tries to tell you.

George
said

It's easy to take credit for all the difficult decision that were made to allow for Canada to prosper and have money to pay down the debt the Conservatives of the 80s left us. We'd still have a surplus today even if the NDP were in power. It wouldn't last long but it would still be there.

GG
said

This is what I call doing what is good for Canadians. Fiscal responsibilty has long been a vice for the liberal party, I am happy to see WORK being done for the Canadian people in Ottawa.

G.R.
said

He should be thanking Paul Martin!

Scott
said

That's funny how their rhetoric changes when they are the government. While in opposition and the Liberals were running up these massive surpluses, they claimed they would never do the same thing. Seems to me they could be handing some more money out to the provinces and cities, or at least reducing personal income taxes. Also, maybe now Harper/Flaherty can finally deliver the equalization money to Saskatchewan and the maritimes that was promissed but not delivered in the last budget.

Mel
said

Why are we paying such high taxes if we are raking in surplus money? Why is TO going bankrupt when we are raking in surplus money? Is the middle class ever gonna get a break? These days you need to go on welfare before the government will do anything for you! This is NOT good news, but more evidence of how our Corporatation/Government is treating us like slave labour....

shannon
said

Things just keep getting better with Mr. Harper around.

AR
said

I just have to laugh at how the Conservatives were so critical of previous surpluses when they were in opposition. So critical at how the Liberals use to underestimate surpluses.

Now that the Conservatives are in power, though, not only are their estimates many times worse but the surpluses are actually way bigger.

Hypocrisy knows no bounds. What a friggin joke these Conservatives are. Unbelievable!

Paul Connolly
said

Let's give credit where it is due. We have Paul Martin, Former Finance Minister, to thank for putting Canada back into surplus budgets after the previous Conservative Government lead by Brian Mulroney put us into massive debt and deficits. We also have the people of Canada to thank for accepting the necessary cutbacks in the past 10 years to put us back into surpluses. The way the new conservative government under Harper is spending all our hard earned money, particularly buying votes in Quebec, is back to old time politics, very scary.

Glenn from London
said

Reduced the debt? Cut coming to personal taxes? No lies or scandals? Give Harper a majority!!

Dave in Surrey
said

Odd... So when the Liberals had huge surpluses it was stealing from the taxpayers... But when the Conservatives, who promised not to have them, have huge surpluses, it is good for the taxpayer...

Just remember folks, if it wasn't for Martin as finance minister we would be dealing with Mulroney's 50 billion dollar deficits...

Pat S.
said

90 Billion $$$ since 1996. Thanks in most part to the liberals. Now Harper, how about some tax relief instead of simply a 1% cut to the GST????

sk
said

Oh how I wish this man had a majority government!

Richard
said

I am a young Canadian (in my mid-20s) who is just beginning to pay serious amounts of income tax (was a student previously). The argument can be made, due to my age, that I have little profited from the overspending that resulted in the debt (and I certainly had no say in the decision). But, the problem is we have a debt equal to ~$500Billion.

I think it is excellent that the government is choosing to pay down the debt with the surplus. Frankly I do not care which party (Conservative or Liberal) is responsible for the debt and which is responsible for the surpluses that repay it. Repaying it is the responsible thing to do.

I am paying for it (though I did not create it), and I can only hope that my children are not going to have to pay for it as well. Add in the environmental problems (among other big issues), and the future does not look to good for my children and I. Hopefully the previous generations realizes this.

I am very happy and proud to be living in Canada, and it was the people before me who made it the country that it is. I am not trying to denounce my elders... But surely we can do better than argue about who is responsible?

Can we not just celebrate our successes? Learn from the past mistakes? Implement policy to clean up those mistakes? And insure that it does not happen again?

Happy and anxiously awaiting the future,
Richard

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