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 debts | Total debt | |
|---|---|---|
| December | 2 | $789.65 million |
| January | 1 | $800.00 million |
| Total | 5 | $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.
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.
Thanks!
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”
So it is. Thanks for catching that. It really changes the meaning of the sentence. 🙂
[…] Independent investigative journalist Kim Siever posted this week about the Term Debt Issues document released on Jan. 21. The NDP racked up $49.72 billion in debt […]
[…] plans to borrow slightly more than that: $24 billion over the next year. Over the last two years, we’ve already borrowed $30 billion. They plan to borrow an additional $18.7 billion in the final year of this term and $12.9 billion […]
[…] been over 2 months since I last wrote about the Alberta government’s term debt, so I thought I’d write this brief […]