I just read a response on another thread where Canada had supposedly recovered from a downgrade to AA back to AAA in 3 or 4 years. I have no clue as to the veracity of the claim, but apparently it can be done if the postee was correct about that.
Looks like Fox New’s 9 years is correct.
http://business.asiaone.com/Business/News/Story/A1Story20110806-293018.html
Standard & Poor’s took away Canada’s AAA rating on debt denominated in foreign currencies in 1992.
But Ottawa recovered the grade in 2002 after reducing government spending as a fraction of GDP by more than eight per cent, through a series of stringent spending cuts. (Canada’s sovereign debt as denominated in Canadian dollars was never downgraded.)