The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday edition that British Columbia has faced a barrage of credit-rating downgrades in recent years. The Globe's Jason Kirby, writing ahead of B.C.'s Oct. 24 election, quotes Derek Holt, head of capital markets economics at Bank of Nova Scotia, saying in a recent note, "Under Premier Eby's administration, B.C. has been downgraded eight times in total by the main credit rating agencies." Fitch, one of the most recent rating agencies to downgrade B.C. debt in April, said the rating cut "reflects our expectation that meaningful erosion of debt metrics is likely given projected operating deficits and capital spending. With only modest offsetting actions so far and no plan to return to balance in the near term, further erosion is possible." Against that backdrop, Mr. Holt also noted that investors now demand a premium to hold B.C.'s 10-year bonds that is nearly as large as Quebec's, the widest among Canada's four largest provinces. And increasingly, those higher interest payments are heading south. Between April 1 to June 30, B.C. borrowed $14.9-billion in long-term debt from domestic and foreign markets with the latter, largely U.S. investors, accounting for 82 per cent of that lending.