FIRST READING: B.C. stacking up sub-national debt faster than anywhere else in North America - National Post

When Eby took office, B.C. paid about $2 billion per year in interest charges. It’s now triple that, with this year’s debt servicing costs expected to top $6.3 billion. Photo by Goverment of British ColumbiaArticle contentFirst Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.

New figures show that B.C. is running up debt faster than any other subnational jurisdiction in North America, including famously indebted U.S. states such as California and New York.

The province’s deficit forecast now stands at $13.8 billion for the year, according to an update released this week by the B.C. Ministry of Finance.

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That’s equivalent to $2,400 in new debt for every single resident of the province. Or, about $46 in new debt per resident, per week.

The figure not only dwarfs the relative debt accumulation of any other Canadian province, but of all 50 U.S. states.

The B.C. deficit is so high, in fact, that it will almost exactly match this year’s deficit in Ontario, a province with more than three times the population.

The latest estimates from the government of Ontario Premier Doug Ford also put their deficit at $13.8 billion.

But with more than 16 million Ontarians (as opposed to 5.7 million British Columbians), Ontario’s deficit will work out to a per-capita rate of about $850.

The Quebec government of Christine Fréchette has come in for criticism for its fiscal imprudence. One issue that emerged in the province’s ongoing provincial election was a Santé Québec IT project that ballooned from $98 million to more than $1 billion.

But Quebec’s budget deficit this year is still pegged at roughly half of B.C.’s, despite a larger population and larger GDP. The most recent estimates have Quebec’s deficit at $7.2 billion.

B.C.’s rate of debt accumulation also dwarfs anything seen among U.S. states, even those notorious for their spendthrift finances.