Canadian foreign debt 1.9 billion or am I crazy?

Factual Questions
1

So I’m doing some reaserch for a school project on Morocco, I’m searching stuff about foreign debt I find a list of the 10 countries with the largest debt I’m shocked that the US and Canada are not there since I can remember they have huge debts; so I go check the CIA World factbook and find US with 800 bil of debt and Canada with 1.9 billion…

WHAT??
1.9 billion??? Being Canadian, I hear a lot about the debt, and servicing the debt, and the deficit and surpluses, etc etc and the debt always ranged in the 500 billions; I naturally assumed that foreign debt would be a significant portion of it (was I wrong)

Now, I figure that the first list is simply wrong, and have no problem about it because it doesn’t seem reliable and respectable anyway; but the CIA world fact book?? am I missing something?

I tried to find something to coroborate either, but nothing… Statistics Canada and finance canada didn’t produce anything good, but then again I’m a really bad net-searcher…really! and since I have no one else to turn to, I’m turning to the teeming millions…

(BTW this has nothing to do with my school project (my project is on australian exports to Morocco…), its just out of curiosity.

2

btw I’m really lagging behind on my project and I’ll never be done because I keep drifting on interesting and intriguing (sp?) stuff…and then I stop to read the sdmb…
ok, I’m going back to work now…
:o (I know it says embarasment; but personally I see a smiley that yawns…anyway…)

3

I’m a little confused on the question. Is it:

  1. Why isn’t the US listed in the first chart, since 800 billion is higher than all the number listed?

  2. Why is the Canadian foreign debt only 1.9 billion if it’s total debt is 500 billion?

  3. Are the foreign debt numbers in the CIA world factbook incorrect? (I’m not sure why you think this.)

4

StatsCan site seems to say its 27 Billion, but I’m no expert on government fiscal math-a-magic http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/govt03.htm

5

The first list you linked to, DrLiver, is the highest foreign debts owed by countries. Brazil, Russia and Mexico are top on that list because they owe lots of money to other countries who have given them loans. The US and Canada are not high on that list because they don’t borrow a lot of money from other countries.

The numbers you’re thinking of are national debts, the money that a capitalist government owes to investors (primarily its own citizens) who have loaned money to the government. In that case, the US has a national debt of some $6.4 trillion (USD). Canada’s is about $550 billion (CDN).