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Friday Ramblings

Now that is my kind of Surplus!

The feds announced today a whopping $14B Canadian. That is a whole lotta money to be running as a surplus and it makes me wonder why we are paying at the tax level that we currently are. Now in defense of the government, they are doing the right thing with this extra money:


The surplus will be used to pay down the federal government’s accumulated debt, which will have dropped to $467.3 billion as of March 31 of this year — its lowest level in 14 years. Since 1996, the debt has been paid down by $95.6 billion.

Good to hear that they are paying down the DEBT and that the DEBT is down almost $100B in 11 years (of course the fact that we still have almost $500B to go is worrying).

Allegedly tax cuts are coming, but to who(m) and how much remains to be seen.

Ontario Election Front

I still haven’t managed to get an NDP sign for my front lawn, but I do have both PC and Liberal signs on my front lawn (reflecting our household’s complete confusion about who might be the best choice for Ontario).

All parties other than the Liberals seem to be running an “Anybody But Dalton” campaign (or a “we can’t screw up as badly as he did” campaign). Will this work? We’ll see.

No new mention of huge tax breaks, or free money being given to me, so I haven’t decided as of yet. Yes, anybody reading from a Political Party, my vote can be bought (for the RIGHT price).

Canada We are Bigger

No, no, not another complaint about being overweight, Stats Canada has estimates for Canada’s population as of July this year:


Nationally, Canada’s population hit an estimated 32,976,000, a gain of 326,500 people and a growth of 1% between July 1, 2006 and June 30, 2007. The rate of growth was similar to that in 2005/2006.

So that means the surplus is about $430 per person in Canada. You think they will cut us all a cheque?

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Feel Free to Comment

  1. nancy (aka money coach)

    OK, please nobody flame me here, but … seeings as how every day I leave my moderately posh condo in Vancouver and step over increasing numbers of bodies who have slept outside (anecdotally I’ve noticed a significant increase in the past 7 years since I’ve lived here) I can’t help but wonder … when does giving shelter to the homeless get put back on the (serious) agenda? How does that balance out with lowering our debt?

  2. Hope they don’t call me up and make me pay my part of the debt!

    Very well stated points, agreed Canada certainly seems to be more fiscally responsible than our American cousins.

  3. It took 11 years to get the debt down to where it is, but like any good debt snowball it will get faster and faster. Especially if the surpluses keep improving.

    If you look at the debt history from 1997 you get:
    1997 562B
    1998 559B (-3B)
    1999 554B (-5B)
    2000 539B (-15B)
    2001 519B (-20B)
    2002 511B (-8B)
    2003 505B (-6B)
    2004 496B (-9B)
    2005 494B (-2B)
    2006 481B (-13B)

    If you look at the population between 1997 and 2006 in the 4th quater you get an increase from 29.9M to 32.7M.

    This makes the debt per person drop over that period go from (562000 / 29.9) $18795 down to (481000 / 32.7) $14709. That’s some pretty huge progress if you ask me.

    In that same period unemployment has gone from around 9% to around 6.1% making future surpluses more likely due to the interest savings on the 81 Billion that we no longer owe. (Though it could be that job seekers are just giving up too, since unemployment is skewed to make it look good like that)

    Looking at the same period in the USA? They are looking at a debt of around $29,681.60 per person, and as far sa I knew it was growing.

    I think we are in pretty good shape.

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