不列颠哥伦比亚省选民下周将前往投票站，执政党正在煽动反美情绪，敦促居民尽量避免前往美国。但抵制似乎并不适用于债券市场。
With British Columbia voters heading to the polls next week, the ruling party is raising anti-US sentiment and urging residents to avoid the country altogether. The boycott doesn’t seem to apply to the bond market.
加拿大西部省份正在出售大量美元债务，以融资因一波支出而急剧扩大的预算赤字。根据加拿大帝国银行的一份研究报告，不列颠哥伦比亚省本财政年度在美国筹集了约80亿美元，占其总借款的近一半。无论是按美元金额还是占总资金的比例计算，这都超过了其他任何省份。
The western Canadian province is selling a massive amount of US dollar debt to finance a budget deficit that has soared following a wave of spending. British Columbia has raised about $8 billion in the US this fiscal year, accounting for almost half of total borrowing, according to a research note from Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. That’s more than any other province, both by dollar value and as a percentage of total funding.
莱思惠勒投资顾问有限公司的主管、投资组合经理瑞安·古尔丁表示，随着预算赤字上升，加拿大投资者正在抛售该省债券，因此不列颠哥伦比亚省政府越来越多地转向美国债务市场。总部位于温哥华、管理资产超过300亿加元（约合210亿美元）的该公司，已连续十多年对本省债券持低配置，古尔丁表示。
The BC government has increasingly turned to the US debt market because Canadian investors are shunning its bonds as the budget deficit rises, according to Ryan Goulding, principal, portfolio manager at Leith Wheeler Investment Counsel Ltd. “This is the worst deterioration in finances in a positive growth economy we’ve seen in this country,” Goulding said in an email.
“这是我们在这个国家看到的，在正增长经济体中财务状况最恶化的情况，”古尔丁在一封电子邮件中表示。
The Vancouver-based firm, which manages more than C$30 billion ($21 billion), has been underweight its home province for more than a decade, Goulding said.
随着预算缺口从四年前的盈余扩大到近140亿加元，评级机构已多次下调该省评级。执政的新民主党优先投入医疗、教育和公务员编制，支出增速超过了收入增长。相比之下，安大略省虽面临类似赤字，却支撑着近三倍于不列颠哥伦比亚省的人口。
Rating firms have repeatedly downgraded the province as the budget gap widens to almost C$14 billion, from a surplus just four years ago. The ruling New Democratic Party has prioritized spending on healthcare, education and public-service staffing that has outpaced revenue growth. By contrast, Ontario is running a similar deficit while supporting a population nearly three times as large.
没有哪个省份像不列颠哥伦比亚省那样依赖美元融资，美元占其未偿债务的五分之一以上。根据彭博社汇编的数据，这一比例大约是同行平均水平的两倍。相比之下，彭博社数据显示，安大略省约9%的未偿债务为美元计价。
No province relies on US dollar funding as much as BC, where the greenback accounts for more than a fifth of outstanding debt. That’s about twice the peer average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. By contrast, only about 9% of Ontario’s outstanding debt is in US dollars, according to Bloomberg.
然而，不列颠哥伦比亚省省长大卫·埃比是一名前民权律师，也是加拿大对美国总统唐纳德·特朗普最直言不讳的批评者之一。他的省份是那些将美国酒类从商店货架上撤下的省份之一。他取消了原定于2025年去华特迪士尼公司游乐园的家庭假期，并敦促同胞抵制前往美国旅行。
Yet Premier David Eby, a former civil rights lawyer, is one of Canada’s most outspoken critics of US President Donald Trump. His province is among those that pulled American booze from store shelves. He canceled a family holiday to a Walt Disney Co. amusement park in 2025 while urging fellow citizens to boycott US travel.
加拿大人口第三多的省份是受美国关税打击最严重的省份之一，预计包括木材在内的多个行业将遭受重大损失。上个月，该省将本财政年度的GDP增长预期下调至0.9%。
Canada’s third-most populous province is among the hardest hit by US tariffs, and is expected to see significant damage to sectors including lumber. Last month, the province lowered its GDP growth forecast to 0.9% for this fiscal year.
面对这些挑战，标准普尔全球评级公司在4月将该省评级下调至A，展望为负面，理由是该省“在有意义地改善省级结构性预算赤字方面缺乏积极承诺”。标准普尔在五年内五次下调该省评级，使其从最高AAA级别跌落。根据标准普尔评级，该省现在在加拿大各省中排名第八，与纽芬兰与拉布拉多省持平。
Amid these challenges, S&P Global Ratings downgraded the province to A in April with a negative outlook, citing a less proactive commitment “to meaningfully improve the province’s structural budgetary shortfall.”The province has now been cut five times in five years by S&P, falling from its top AAA level. It now ranks eighth among Canadian provinces based on S&P ratings, in line with Newfoundland and Labrador.
财政下降在债券利差中有所体现，即投资者持有该债务所要求的风险溢价。根据彭博指数，不列颠哥伦比亚省10年期收益率最近上升至高于基准安大略省债券2个基点，而早在2021年，该省债券仍以8个基点或更多的折价交易。
The fiscal decline is reflected in bond spreads, or the risk premium investors demand to hold the debt. BC’s 10-year yield recently rose to 2 basis points above benchmark Ontario bonds, compared with a discount of 8 basis points or more as recently as 2021, according to a Bloomberg Index.
可以肯定的是，包括安大略省和魁北克省在内的许多加拿大省份越来越多地在海外发行债券，以实现多元化并避免在国内市场债券供应过剩。如果不利用国际市场，加拿大各省几乎肯定将不得不在国内支付更高的借款成本。其中大多数省份通过使用互换将借款转换为加元。
To be sure, many Canadian provinces including Ontario and Quebec have increasingly looked abroad to sell debt for diversification and to avoid flooding the domestic market. Without tapping the international market, Canadian provinces would almost certainly have to pay more to borrow at home. Most of them convert borrowings to Canadian dollars by using swaps.
“加拿大其他地区正在努力减少对美国的依赖，而不列颠哥伦比亚省的新民主党政府却依赖美国为自己融资，”古尔丁说。
“While the rest of Canada is working to reduce our reliance on the US, BC’s NDP government relies on the US to finance itself,” Goulding said.
不列颠哥伦比亚省政府在选举期间拒绝发表评论。新民主党没有回应置评请求。
The BC government declined to comment during an election period. The NDP didn’t respond to a request for comment.
据不列颠哥伦比亚省商业理事会政策副总裁、加拿大银行前高级经济学家大卫·威廉姆斯表示，巨额预算缺口意味着企业和工人将承担更高税收，因为债务偿还正在吞噬预算的更多部分。他补充说，与此同时，评级下调进一步推高了借贷成本，而全球债券收益率正在飙升。
The yawning budget gap means businesses and workers are on the hook for higher taxes as debt payments eat up more of the budget, according to David Williams, vice president of policy at the Business Council of British Columbia and a former senior economist at the Bank of Canada. The rating cuts meanwhile raise borrowing costs further just as global bond yields are soaring, he added.
威廉姆斯说，不列颠哥伦比亚省的财政轨迹“向企业和家庭，特别是高技能人才，传递了非常负面的信号，让他们考虑是否在该省扎根”。
BC’s fiscal trajectory “is a very negative signal to businesses and to households, particularly high-skilled individuals, about basing yourselves in the province,” Williams said.
BMO资本市场高级经济学家谢莉·考希克表示，该省的净债务占产出的比例仍可控，但存在赤字可能固化下来的风险。不列颠哥伦比亚省预计，其债务占GDP比率将在当前财政年度达到30%，明年将上升至近34%。
To Shelly Kaushik, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, the province’s net debt is still manageable as a share of output, but there is a risk that the deficit could become entrenched. BC expects its debt-to-GDP ratio to hit 30% in the current fiscal year, rising to almost 34% next year.
考希克说，“赤字没有平衡之路，从某种程度上说，它正朝着相反的方向发展”。
“There’s no path to balance on the deficit and in some ways it’s going in the other direction,” Kaushik said.
据益普索（Ipsos）最新民调显示，在10月24日投票之前，新民主党在民调中持续下滑，最近落后于保守党五个百分点。这是一个月前的急剧逆转，当时在野的托利党还落后10个百分点。戈尔丁表示，无论哪个政党获胜，都将不得不应对财政挑战。
Ahead of the Oct. 24 vote, the NDP has been slipping in the polls, most recently trailing the Conservative Party by five percentage points, according to Ipsos. That’s a sharp reversal from a month ago, when the opposition Tories trailed by 10 percentage points. Either way, the winning party will have to deal with the fiscal challenges, Goulding said.
他说，“无论结果如何，要在短时间内从如此严峻的财政困境中扭转局面都将非常困难”。
“It will be hard to turn a ship from such financial demise in short order regardless of the outcome,” he said.