Article content Canada’s third-largest province will run a deficit this fiscal year that’s “significantly larger” than expected when the pandemic began, which will likely lengthen the time to return to fiscal balance, S&P said in a statement Wednesday explaining the one-notch downgrade to AA+. The move comes less than two weeks after Fitch Ratings took a parallel rating action. We apologize, but this video has failed to load. Try refreshing your browser, or British Columbia's AAA rating stripped by S&P on rising debt Back to video Finance Minister Selina Robinson presented a budget in April that projected a budget deficit of $9.7 billion (US$7.8 billion) in the current fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2022, and smaller deficits for the two years after that.