As part of its National Debt Clock Tour, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation visited Ottawa. At a new conference, National Research Director Derek Fildebrandt announces the federal debt will reach a new historic high of $562,881,000,000. Over the last three years of deficit spending, the federal government wiped out the $105 billion in loan repayments made between 1997 and 2008. The visit was part the CTF's National Debt Clock Tour that started at Mile 0 in Victoria, BC on February 22, 2011 and is expected to wind up in Halifax the last week of March.