The Government of Canada used all of the country’s $13.2-billion surplus in the past fiscal year to pay down debt, the Finance Department announced today.

The department said it would save $1 billion over two fiscal years. The federal debt was $481.5 billion at the end of March 2006, compared with $494.7 billion a year earlier, Finance said.

Revenue in the 2005-06 fiscal year was $222.2 billion, up 4.8% from the year before. Expenses totaled $209 billion in the last fiscal year, down 0.7% from the previous year.