Future government contract costs jump 50% in one year

Although it has received some coverage in the media it is worth noting the eye-popping jump in the cost of long term contracts signed by the BC government in the last year.

These contracts don’t go on the books as debt, but just like debt we will be responsible for it for the next 30 or 40 years.

The lions share of these payments will go to independent power producers.  Last year the future cost of these payments jumped from $23.8 billion to $45.3 billion. This is the cost of privatizing BC’s power system. Marvin Shaffer writes about this process here and here.

Future costs for hopsital public private partnerships jumped more than $2 billion to $9.1 billion.

The government reports on these “Contingencies and Contractual Obligations” in the Public Accounts in limited detail. Fortunately, they now also make more detailed information available on a website here.

Topics: Climate change & energy policy, Environment, resources & sustainability