Canada's Budget Triumph

Abstract

A federal government runs a large deficit. Deficits are so large that the ratio of federal debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) approaches 70 per cent. A constituency of voters have gotten used to large federal spending programs. Does that sound like the United States? Well, yes. But it also describes Canada in 1993. Yet, just 16 years later, Canada’s federal debt had fallen from 67 per cent to only 29 per cent of GDP. Moreover, in every year between 1997 and 2008, Canada’s federal government had a budget surplus. In one fiscal year, 2000–2001, its surplus was a whopping 1.8 per cent of GDP. If the U.S. government had such a surplus today, that would amount to a cool $263 billion rather than the current deficit of more than $1.5 trillion.