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UCP government borrowed $30B in debt in under 2 years

The UCP have borrowed nearly $18 billion a year, 20% more than the NDP borrowed.

Last week, the provincial government updated their Term Debt Issues document, which lists all the term debt they still have outstanding.

It’s been 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 3 more term debts:

# of debtsTotal debt
December2$789.65 million
January1$800.00 million
Total5$1.6 billion

One of the new debts will mature in 2030, and the other two mature in 2050.

The interest rates on these 5 debts range from 2.05% to 3.1%.

However, the effective cost of debt (or the interest rate after tax deductions) is 2.701% for the debt from this month (last week, actually), 2.070% for last month’s debt maturing in 2030, and 1.644% for last month’s debt that matures in 2030.

This new $1.6 billion brings the total term debt traded by the provincial government since the UCP were elected to $29.96 billion, spread out over 62 transactions.

The total amount of term debt owned by Alberta government is about $93.2 billion, a third of which has been issued since the UCP were elected a little over a year and a half ago. About 53% 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 less than 2 years. That gives the NDP an average of $12.43 billion a year, and the UCP an average of $14.98 billion a year. And that’s assuming a generous 2 full years for the UCP. If we calculate based on only the 20 months they’ve been in power, then that number changes to $17.98 billion, which is 20% more than the annual average of the NDP.

At this rate, the UCP will have borrowed a total of $71.91 billion during their 4-year term, which will be 44% more than the NDP borrowed during their 4-year term.

By the 2023 election, provincial debt could total as much as $134.97 billion, and the UCP portion would make up 53% of it, assuming they keep borrowing at this rate. That’s including subtracting the two debts that mature before then.

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By Kim Siever

Kim Siever is an independent journalist based in Lethbridge, Alberta. He writes daily news stories, focusing on politics and labour.

7 replies on “UCP government borrowed $30B in debt in under 2 years”

At this rate, the UCP will borrowed a total of $71.91 billion during their 4-year term, which will be 44% more than the NDP borrowed during their 4-year term.

Will have borrowed. I know, I know, everyone’s a critic.

 And that’s assuming a generous 2 full years for the UCP. If we calculate based on only the 20 months they’ve been in power, then that number changes to $17.98 billion, which is 20% the annual average of the NDP.

Should be “20% more than”

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