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EDMONTON — An internationally recognized credit rating agency is sounding alarm bells on Alberta’s debt situation.

The Toronto-based agency DBRS, in a report issued Thursday, says with oil prices so low and the government’s borrowing plans so high, Alberta will exceed its own self-imposed legislated debt limits this fiscal year.

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The agency confirmed Alberta’s top-drawer triple-A credit rating, but said the future is grim.

“The negative trend reflects DBRS’s expectation that the continued weakness in oil prices will contribute to a material erosion in the province’s fiscal performance and accumulation of debt,” said the DBRS report.

“DBRS believes that the fiscal response is unlikely to be adequate to maintain credit metrics consistent with the AAA rating, in particular maintaining a DBRS-adjusted debt burden below 15 per cent of GDP,” it added.

“Debt is now expected to exceed 15 per cent of GDP as early as (fiscal) 2016-17.”