Ballots Are Already In. Eby’s Deficit Ledger Still Isn’t Settled.

Advance voting for B.C.’s provincial election began Friday, October 16 and runs through Wednesday, October 21, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. local time. Elections BC says advance voting is open to all eligible voters, and voters can cast a ballot at any voting place in the province. Those are the neutral voting facts. The political fact is sharper: David Eby chose the election clock, and voters are already marking ballots while the final fiscal comparison is still being argued in the campaign’s last days.

The number Eby cannot spin away is the one in his own party’s costing. Global News, reporting Canadian Press coverage of the BC NDP costing, said the plan would see the deficit fall to about $12 billion by 2028/29, down from a forecast of about $14 billion this fiscal year. That is not balance. That is not repair. It is a promise to keep B.C. deep in red ink and call the smaller crater progress.

The same report said Eby inherited a budget surplus from John Horgan in 2022 and has overseen the ballooning of the deficit. That history matters because the NDP’s defence is not merely “trust us for four more years.” It is “trust the same government that took the books from surplus to record red ink to now manage the landing.” Voters should demand more than a slogan about being “fully costed.” A costed deficit is still a deficit.

The NDP’s own frame also depends on tax increases and growth assumptions. Global reported the costing includes $1 billion in new revenue from income-tax increases on the top 3.88 per cent of earners and $730 million from targeted economic growth. Those are real policy choices, not magic ink. If growth misses target, if debt-service costs keep climbing, or if spending pressure rises, the bill does not disappear. It moves to taxpayers, services, or both.

This is why the timing matters. Elections BC is doing its job by opening advance voting and providing non-partisan voting information. The accountability problem belongs to Eby. He called the snap election. He set the compressed calendar. He is now asking voters to decide before the province has had a full, calm, line-by-line reckoning with the debt, the deficit, the tax plan, and the risk if the assumptions fail.

So yes: vote early if that is how you vote. But take the ledger with you. The ballot question is not whether Eby can produce a binder. It is whether British Columbians should reward a government that turned a surplus into a deficit crisis, then arrived at advance voting asking for credit because the hole might be slightly smaller two years from now.