Canada’s budget surplus was $5.2 billion through the first nine months of the 2003-2004 fiscal year, the government announced Wednesday.

That’s down $1.9 billion from the surplus that had been recorded in the first nine months of the previous year.

“The lower surplus reflects the impact on revenues of the weakness in economic activity due to a series of shocks that have hit the Canadian economy and the impact of spending initiatives and tax reductions announced in previous budgets,” according to a Finance Department release.

In late November, former finance minister John Manley projected that the surplus for the 2003-2004 fiscal year would come in at $2.3 billion.

The Finance Department said the surplus in December alone was $4.4 billion. “Typically a surplus is recorded in December, reflecting the inclusion of quarterly personal income tax remittances and final corporate income tax payments from those corporations with a taxation year ending October 31,” the department said.

Canadian banks have fiscal years that end Oct. 31. The banks, which reported huge profits of more than $11 billion in fiscal 2003, sent healthy tax payments to the federal treasury in December. Total corporate tax revenues in December were $3.3 billion higher than in the previous December.