The credit agencies agree: David Eby is squandering B.C.'s fiscal credibility

Welcome to Hub Headlines.

Today's program features the best commentary and analysis published in the Hub for March 24th.

Up first is Kirk LaPoint, writing on how David E.B. is squandering B.C.'s fiscal credibility.

Moody's credit downgrade of British Columbia last week is a judgment on a jurisdiction that

has stopped treating fiscal discipline as a governing obligation and now considers it

an optional inconvenience.

From the surface, Moody's credit ratings feel like one of those competition's awarding

participation medals.

After all, no government gets anything worse than a grade of C. Variations abound of A's,

double A's and triple A's.

Even B.C. with record and structural deficits, mounting debt and marked deterioration in

the province's credit fundamentals.

Scores seemingly good marks across categories.

A one in baseline credit, A.A.2 in long-term issuer and senior unsecured debt ratings.

And P.A.A.2 in its senior unsecured program and shelf ratings.

Who doesn't love a straight A report card?

But only a year ago, the ratings were one or two notches better and the economic trajectory

far rose here.

Today, there is little evidence of any near-term bounce back, only slightly smaller deficits

and slightly smaller debt growth.

There is no pipeline in the pipeline, no mega-project at all, to spur sudden revenue to cover the

crater.

On B.C.'s own current ratings page, Moody's S&P, Morningstar DBRS, and Fitch all carry

negative outlooks or trends on the province.

When every major agency looking at the books is leaning the same way, the government

cannot plausibly dismiss the concern as technocratic nitpicking or ideological fussiness,

which is not to say it doesn't try in various ways.

Even with a $13.3 billion deficit, projected $183 billion debt and interest bite of six

cents of every revenue dollar to service.

Finance Minister Brenda Bailey insists,

nobody worries more about the deficit than I do.

Many British Columbians would take that bet.

At the very least, she appears to be shouldering the stress for her boss, Premier David E.B.,

who insists he chose to continue spending in his recent budget overcutting to meet a

credit rating.

He described the budget as incredibly challenging, and argued the alternative would have been

to let health care bear the brunt of cuts.

He has tried to turn a warning about deteriorating finances into a morality play about compassion

versus austerity.

The public hasn't bought it.

The budget is the least liked in the province's recent history.

The business community is enraged by tax increases in a feeble growth strategy.

E.B.'s personal rating has declined, as has his parties.

No serious critic argues B.C. should balance its books overnight by gutting hospitals,

classrooms, or social supports.

The issue Moody's raised is not about government spending, but about its path.

It is rising so fast that even a province long regarded as a national fiscal standout

is now being told it is losing the confidence that reputation once bought.

The implication of the downgrade is not about one or two bad years, but the perception

of a prudent manager who has become a chronic over borrower.

It is frittered a reputational premium as one of the better-run large provinces, a place

with a strong economy, broad tax base, and enough restraint to preserve room for maneuver

when a real emergency struck.

That reputation made borrowing easier, helped reassure investors, and gave governments

a cushion when they needed to spend aggressively.

A downgrade chips away at that.

E.B. would like the public to believe Moody's was merely frowning because the government

refused to worship at the altar of austerity, but rating agencies are not grading ideological

purity.

They are assessing whether a borrower looks increasingly risky.

When Moody's point to entrenched deficits, worsening fiscal management and rising leverage,

it is not asking whether the government means well, but whether it appears to be in control.

Right now, the answer appears to be, less than before.

The premier's framing is a choice between serving people and satisfying markets.

In reality, sound finances are part of serving people.

A government that weakens its fiscal position does not punish abstract bond traders.

It narrows its own future options.

It makes it harder to absorb recessions, trade shocks, disasters, and demographic pressures

without either raising taxes further or cutting programs later under much worse conditions.

In other words, in discipline today is often austerity delayed.

This government has grown comfortable speaking as though every criticism of its finances is

an argument against public services.

The more responsible question is whether this government can distinguish between necessary

spending and politically convenient spending, between strategic borrowing and habitual borrowing,

between temporary deficits and structural ones.

Moody's has signaled that distinction is getting blurrier.

Once governments lose the benefit of the doubt on financial management, every budget

promise sounds less believable, every new spending commitment sounds riskier, and every

external shock becomes more dangerous.

That is why this downgrade should sting.

Fiscal credibility is neither the opponent of public service nor the enemy of compassion.

It is one of the conditions that makes durable public service possible and what makes compassion

affordable when the next emergency arrives.

And that is where the ratings agencies are converging.

They are not saying BC is poor or that it lacks economic strengths.

All of them acknowledge the province's diversified economy, broad tax base and strong market

access.

What they are saying is more unsettling.

BC is still wealthy and credit worthy, but squandering it.

And governments that treat fiscal discipline as optional eventually discover that markets,

taxpayers and events do not.

That was an analysis by Kirkla Point.

He is the hub's BC correspondent.

You can read the full text of his article on our website, the hub.ca.

Our second essay is by Daniel Robson, writing on how Canada is becoming too useful to fugitives,

traffickers, and terror suspects.

Canada's debate over Bill C-22, proposed legislation aiming to give police and intelligence

agencies easier access to digital information during investigations, is being framed mainly

as a question of lawful access, digital evidence, and investigative capacity.

But the deeper issue is broader.

Other Canada has become too easy to use for cross-border criminals who need time, distance,

mobility, and institutional lag, a place where they can catch their breath or plan their exploits.

That is the real fault line.

A country does not have to be the final destination of a fraud scheme, a cartel network, or a terror

plot to become part of it.

It can be enough to serve as a first refuge, a transit point, or a jurisdiction where

scrutiny arrives late.

That is what links three very different cases.

Medihijui, Ryan Wedding, and Muhammad Shahzeb Khan.

The details differ.

The pattern does not.

In all three, Canada appears as a place where a suspect could move, regroup, or by time

while carrying out their criminal exploits.

The hijawi file is the murkiest, which is exactly why it matters.

The public record around him is not that of a misunderstood exile.

It is that of a former Moroccan external intelligence official, removed from service

over serious professional misconduct, and later implicated in fraud allegations, victim

complaints, and an international arrest warrant linked to serious cross-border financial fraud,

targeting both Moroccan and foreign individuals, as well as the use of a forged passport.

The file that emerges through judicially relevant complaints and witness-based investigations,

detailed accounts of victims and losses, investigative synthesis of the wider scheme,

and coverage of ongoing extortion-related investigations points in one direction.

False claims of rank and proximity, promises of influence, phantom opportunities, migration-related

scams, major financial losses, and the use of a former intelligence aura as commercial

bait.

This later showed that Canada was hijawi's first destination as he fled justice.

After France and Spain, he fled again to another country.

After Spanish courts had already begun proceedings to examine his surrender to Moroccan justice

following the issuance of the international arrest warrant.

In a cross-border fraud and evasion case, that first stop matters.

It is where pressure eases and where a suspect can begin repositioning and buying time.

Canada did not need to be the final shelter to become operationally useful.

The latest public remarks from his son make the file harder to soften.

He described years of lies and manipulation, said the first victims were inside the family

itself, rejected the claim that his father was a political victim, and called on him to

return and face justice.

Those remarks destroy the carefully cultivated story that often surrounds this kind of cross-border

file, that the man at the center is merely a hunted victim rather than a central source

of the damage around him.

The Ryan Wedding case is more straightforward.

US authorities alleged that the former Canadian Olympian helped lead a major cocaine trafficking

enterprise tied to the Cinaloa cartel, moving shipments from Colombia through Mexico into

both the United States and Canada.

Prosecutors say the network generated more than $1 billion a year and was tied not only

to large-scale trafficking, but also to multiple killings, including murders linked to Ontario.

After his extradition to California, Reuters reported that Wedding pleaded not guilty to charges

including drug trafficking, conspiracy to commit murder, and witness tampering.

What matters for Canada is that the country appears inside the structure of the enterprise

itself, part of the market, part of the money chain, and part of the geography in which

scores were settled.

The Muhammad Shahzab Khan case shows the same weakness from the terrorism side.

Khan, a Pakistani citizen, arrived in Canada on a student visa in June 2023 and was arrested

in September 2024 as he allegedly tried to move toward the US border.

According to US authorities, he was preparing an ISIS-inspired mass shooting at a Jewish

center in Brooklyn around the anniversary of the October 7th attacks.

Reuters said he used encrypted communications, express support for ISIS, and tried to

align timing, symbolism, and target selection to maximize fear and casualties.

The US Justice Department later confirmed that he was extradited from Canada on June 10th,

2025.

Again, Canada was not the final target, but it was part of the route, part of the preparation

period, and part of the permissive space in which the suspect lived, communicated, and

moved before the plot was interrupted.

Taken together, the three cases expose the same blind spot.

In one, Canada appears early in the escape path of a dismissed intelligence-linked figure

facing serious fraud allegations and an international warrant.

In another, it sits inside a cartel-connected trafficking network tied to murders and billion-dollar

flows.

In the third, it forms part of the pathway toward an alleged mass-casualty attack in the

United States.

The threats differ.

The pattern does not.

Canada often seems to recognize its role late after the suspect is already wanted, already

mobilized, or already moving on.

That is why the answer cannot stop at Bill C-22.

The bill matters, but the broader challenge is institutional.

Canada needs tighter coordination between border screening, immigration controls, financial

intelligence, criminal investigation, and international information sharing, especially

when suspicious mobility, serious fraud allegations, organized crime exposure, or extremist intent

overlap across jurisdictions.

It also needs to treat an early Canadian stop in a wider, evasive chain as a Canadian

problem from the start, not as a foreign drama to be noticed only after the suspect

has moved on.

Canada also needs a more disciplined way of reading warning signs.

Suspicious mobility, evasive route patterns, major fraud exposure, cartel linked logistics,

and rapid self-reinvention are not disconnected facts.

In an open country, they are often the signals that matter most.

If Ottawa wants to stop Canada from being so useful to fugitives, traffickers, and terror

suspects, it will have to do more than modernize interception law.

It will have to recognize the problem before the useful part is already over.

That was an analysis by Daniel Robson.

He is a Canadian independent journalist, specializing in digital extremism, national security,

and counterterrorism.

You can read the full text of his article on our website, TheHub.ca.

That's it for today's edition of Hub Headlines.

We hope you enjoyed the program.

Hub headlines is produced by Alicia Rao.

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