Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the speeches of the hon. member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell and the hon. member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park. They cited many figures and talked a lot about Canada's debt. I am no expert on the matter, but I have some figures that might give an indication of the extent of the debt at certain times in the recent history of our country.
In 1983-84, when the government changed, the debt was—if I recall correctly—roughly $198 billion. In 1993, when there was another change in government, the accumulated debt had reached $498 billion.
Mon colleague from Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, who said that the Mulroney government had almost doubled the debt, is mistaken. In fact, the Mulroney government more than doubled it. The debt went from some $200 billion to nearly $500 billion. Naturally, in 1993, during the first year the newly formed Liberal government was in power, a $42 billion deficit was added to the debt for the 1993-94 fiscal year.
For two or three years more, we continued to run deficits. Fortunately, they decreased year by year, and we finally managed to balance the books. For the past seven years, we have been generating budgetary surpluses. With these surpluses, we have been able to reduce the debt by $60 billion to, I believe, $501 billion now.
There is another important factor in all this. Hon. members should know that the debt to GDP ratio has decreased even more significantly. When the Liberal government was formed in 1993, the ratio was somewhere around 75%, while today it is less than 50%, which is why it is important to pass this bill.