Last month, the provincial government updated their Term Debt Issues document, which lists all the term debt they still have outstanding.
It’s been over 2 months since I last wrote about the Alberta government’s term debt, so I thought I’d write this brief update.
During that time, the UCP government traded 12 more term debts:
| # of debts | Total debt | |
|---|---|---|
| January | 1 | $0.750 billion |
| February | 4 | $1.500 billion |
| March | 7 | $2.575 billion |
| Total | 12 | $4.825 billion |
Keep in mind that two of the new debts are in Australian dollars, so the total amount that Alberta will end up paying for these—in Canadian dollars—may fluctuate:
- $100 million, maturing in 2046, 2.4725%
- $200 million, maturing in 2036, 2.01%
The earliest any of the 12 debts will mature is 2031 (four, in fact). The latest is 2071.
The interest rates on these 12 debts range from 1.65% to 3.9%. However, the effective cost of debt (or the interest rate after tax deductions) ranges from 1.711% to 2.988%.
This new $4.825 billion brings the total term debt traded by the provincial government since the UCP were elected to $34.8 billion, spread out over 74 transactions.
The total amount of term debt owned by Alberta government is a little over $98 billion, a third of which has been issued since the UCP were elected a little over a year and a half ago. About 47% of it was issued during the NDP administration.
Keep in mind, however, that it took the NDP 4 years to rack up $49.72 billion in debt. The UCP have accumulated nearly $30 billion in about 2 years. That gives the NDP an average of $12.43 billion a year, and the UCP an average of $17.39 billion a year.
At this rate, the UCP will have borrowed a total of $69.6 billion during their 4-year term, which will be 40% more than the NDP borrowed during their 4-year term.
By the 2023 election, provincial debt could total as much as $132.6 billion, and the UCP portion would make up 52.5% of it, assuming they keep borrowing at this rate. That’s including subtracting the two debts that mature before then.
3 replies on “UCP government borrowed over $5B in debt since January”
[…] servicing costs were up by about $250 million, but that’s probably because they had to borrow a crap tonne of money to pay for the pandemic. Oh, and […]
[…] been over 2 months since I last wrote about the Alberta government’s term debt, so I thought I’d write this brief […]
[…] been over 3 months since I last wrote about the Alberta government’s term debt, so I thought I’d write this brief […]