Chretien and Martin paid off $100 billion. After his first year, killing federal revenues by GST and corporate tax cuts and enormous expenditures in some areas, e.g. defence, Harper no longer had any surplus to pay down debt. He paid down $10 billion the first year before his own policies shot him and Flaherty in the foot and then ran up $160 billion plus in deficits going forward. In the two years where Harper ran up $100 billion in combined deficits, aka new debt, he had promised $44 billion in stimulus. Not all of that money was spent. There was therefore over one two year period $56 billion in deficits that had nothing to do with infrastructure spending.