It was $180 billion then and of course when we took over it was about $560 billion. Of course, one could say that for nine years they had to deal with whatever they wanted to deal with, but in the end they gave us a balloon of a big debt. What we have done is pay down the debt. The NDP member who spoke earlier said it was $80 billion we paid toward the debt, but it was only $52 billion. However, it is $52 billion less that we have to make interest payments on.
Let me also explain this from an economic perspective for the hon. gentleman. Out of the $500 billion debt that is there now, $130 billion is the superannuation, the employees' pensions. The market debt is at the $370 billion to $380 billion mark. If we take as a line item the $130 billion and just pay the $5 billion that we have to pay extra from the employees and the government on that basis and put it on a line item, we will see that our market debt is only $370 billion.
When we look at our debt to GDP, it is the best anywhere. Of course, on that process, the OECD, all the other nations in the world, except for one or two others, do not use the employee superannuation debt on their overall debt. We are the only ones. We are boy scouts--or girl scouts. What we do is put everything together and then say our debt is $500 billion. If everyone else did the same, their debts would be so much more. In fact, the finance department sent me a letter saying I was right, that it was going to speak to the OECD and make sure that we are comparing apples to apples.
When we take it all into account and take the growth in GDP, as we are going to work toward, why will that happen? It is very simple. When we took over the government in 1993, there were 12.8 million Canadians working. How many are working today? There are 15.9 million Canadians working. That is three million more. Twenty-five per cent of the workforce has expanded in the last 10 years. Why? It is very simple. We have worked toward getting our economic house in order. We have made sure that the interest rates were lowered by letting everyone know that they should have confidence in Canada.
On that basis, what took place is that Canadians, whether they own their own home or whether they are renting, the money they are saving on the mortgage rates is after tax dollars that they can spend on their families, on education or on anything that is valuable to them.
I am very proud of what this government has accomplished and will continue to accomplish, because when we continue putting our hearts and minds together with all Canadians, we will achieve. Canada has a special place and the people of Canada are actually low key, hard workers who know how to sacrifice. That is why we have achieved this, not because of the government alone. It is because of the people of Canada who have worked with this government. They chose this government time after time.
I hope and believe that the next time it will also be a Liberal government because Canadians trust us. Yes, there have been a few errors along the way. There is no doubt about that, but overall they know our hearts are in the right place. Canadians know that we care about them. We will not leave behind the person who is disabled or hurt and only go for survival of the fittest. That is not what we are about, although the members across may be, I am not sure. I know that some of them are not.
We in this party believe, as most Canadians believe, that we work as a community. We work together and we share. Together, working with small and medium sized businesses, which have created 85% of those new jobs, we will continue to achieve. When we deal with the environmental technologies and the new technologies of R and D, we can see that the future is very, very bright and I know that Canadians will continue to support this vision.