Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague on this side. Today I want to talk about the budget brought into the House by our finance minister.
Some members opposite were a little disappointed they were not engaged in questions and comments in relation to their own remarks. We sometimes grow weary on this side of the House in hearing how the glass is always less than half empty and constantly being told that things are much worse off than they really are.
The hon. member indicated that we are in a recession, which I believe is not true. I know it is the career objective of most of the members in opposition to predict that we are all going to hell in a handcart, and doom and gloom is nigh, but the Canadian economy seems to have a bit of bounce left in it. With consumer spending and other initiatives including the fiscal initiatives of the government, we may actually avoid a recession even though our American neighbours may actually experience one. Even that is not 100% clear yet.
However, being that as it may, our fiscal initiatives on the government side, under the leadership of the Prime Minister and the finance minister, are placing Canada and our economy precisely where it should be for the benefit of all Canadians. We must remember that the budget and the debate we are having now is part of a larger financial piece that began a couple of years ago after all Canadians had succeeded in placing our government finances in order. In other words, by 1997 we had stopped spending more money than we were raising in tax revenue. That was a huge benchmark. We can all take some pride in having achieved that as Canadians.
There were careers, as you know Mr. Speaker, lost in this House as a result of the need to reduce government spending. Some areas of the country reacted negatively to that. That was perhaps expected but there was no easy way to bring us back into a balanced or a surplus budget without reducing government spending.
There was an attempt to ensure that Canadians better off than others shared that spending reduction right across the country. Inevitably Canadians everywhere had to carry that. We in the House, no matter what side of the House we were on, voted in favour of those appropriations, those spending plans, those estimates and there were political implications for that.
In any event we have come out on the other side and Canadians feel good that we have. The budget is part of a larger piece. We have an ongoing program of conspicuously good fiscal management, tax relief, low inflation and low interest rates. These are all playing their part in the larger program of ensuring our Canadian economy is doing well.
We are succeeding as Canadians and we are on course. We are investing in health care, in research and in security measures, all of which were described in the budget speech.
I want to focus on the fiscal management side. We have not had a deficit in Canada since 1996-97 and for the past five years we have had a balanced budget or better. Our program spending has been reduced to 11.3% of GDP. That is the lowest level in over 50 years. Some people may say that is not a good thing. Some people say government should be spending more on different things. There are lots of things we can spend money on but as a measuring stick we have reduced that spending level as a percentage of the size of our economy to 11.3%. That is the lowest since 1949.
The reversal in Canada's fiscal balance, that is the amount of money we have above or below the line or whether we are in the red or the black, was the most dramatic of any country in the G-7. Since going into a surplus or balanced budget we have been able to pay down about $35 billion in net public debt. That is significant.
Our debt to GDP ratio, the measuring stick used most often by economists, dropped from a high of 70% to 51.8% last year. As we speak the ratio may well be dropping below 50%. That is our target. It will continue to decline on a permanent track. The benchmark used in the European Economic Community for acceptable levels of debt is the 50% mark. We are now just going below that and heading downward. We can take pride in achieving that. It was not easy but we have all as Canadians gotten there.
I will focus a bit on trade. It is the lifeblood of the Canadian economy. Trade is a huge component of our GDP. It is something like 70% to 80% of our gross domestic product. It is our lifeblood. Our two way trade in goods and services with the United States exceeds $2 billion a day. There is no trading relationship in the world of that size. Each country, Canada and the U.S., is the other's biggest customer.
We often take a lot of that for granted. That is one of the reasons it was a surprise to some people on both sides of the border that we had to take prompt measures to deal with border traffic during the security problems we have had over the last few months. The Canadian and American governments have responded extremely well. Measures are now in place and in progress to improve border passage and trade procedures to levels that are better than before the awful day of September 11.
Be that as it may, our global trade is improving. Our current account is in a positive balance. It has been for two to three years. It is running at an average of 2.1% of GDP. That is an extremely important indicator for our overall trade and current account health. Economists look at that. I am not so sure traders in Canadian dollars are looking at it directly these days, but if they did they would be more sanguine and positive about the value of our dollar relative to other currencies.
I reiterate the importance of tax relief in the overall scheme of the budget. Tax relief is a stimulant to the economy, especially when it may be weakening. We are in the middle of a four or five year tax relief plan. I think the Minister of Finance is moving it up to four years from five years, but it is truly a $100 billion tax relief initiative. It is huge. Proportionately speaking it is larger than the plan for the U.S. economy which is our largest trading partner. It will be spread over four years. As I say, we are in the middle of it. The opposition says there is not much in the current budget about tax relief, but the program was announced in the previous two budgets and it is in progress.
About all the Minister of Finance can say when he comes into the House is precisely that. It is in progress. Tax relief measured about $17 billion last year and will be $20 billion in the next fiscal year. Overall tax relief measured by percentage for individuals over the tax cut plan will be a 21% reduction. The average is higher for families with children. The average tax reduction for a family with children will be 27%.
There was plenty of stimulus in the government's fiscal position and in the budget if one takes the time to read it. I know members opposite and members around the House have done so. We have low interest rates and low inflation. The environment for business creation and expansion is there. The budget was exactly what the country needed.