Give Justin Trudeau high marks for boldness, at the very least. With one stroke, he has changed the dynamics of this long election campaign. More importantly, he has challenged the prevailing economic assumption that government’s main role is to get out of the way and let the private sector work its magic.

Instead, the Liberal leader has declared unapologetically that a government led by his party will run “modest” deficits of up to $10 billion a year for the next three years in order to finance the most ambitious infrastructure program the country has ever seen. As he said on Thursday: “These investments have been put off for far too long.”

Predictably, this was greeted with derision from Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, who has managed to make deficit-fighting the holy grail of his economic policy – even while running massive deficits of his own year after year. And it contrasts sharply with NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair’s pledge to balance the federal budget in the first year of a New Democrat government.

Judging just by the numbers, Trudeau’s plan is actually modest. In a national economy of almost $2 trillion, a deficit of even $10 billion amounts to just half of one per cent of economic output. Even compared to federal spending of about $289 billion a year, it is hardly seismic.

But restraining the size and ambition of government has become such an obsession over the past couple of decades that Trudeau’s frank talk about actually building up public assets that everyone agrees are needed comes as a shock – albeit a welcome one.

He would essentially double planned federal spending on infrastructure – everything from transit projects to public housing and green energy projects. It would add up to $125 billion, almost exactly the amount of the national “infrastructure deficit” that the country has accumulated by failing to maintain public projects properly for the past 60 years.

Put like that, it amounts to little more than common sense: why build a house and then fail to replace the roof when it wears out? But the reigning conservative orthodoxy of small government, a shrinking public sector and ever-lower taxes makes it seem practically revolutionary. It shouldn’t be, and the Liberal plan may serve as a rallying cry for those hoping for a more assertive role for government in doing the things we can only accomplish together.

Of course, Trudeau’s thinking on deficits would be more persuasive if he had been making it consistently for many months. It’s no accident that it comes from a party running third and in need of something bold to change the dynamic of the campaign.

One can also fairly question how effective infrastructure spending will be to counter a short-term slowdown. Many of the most worthwhile undertakings (such as major transit projects in the Toronto area) would take years to get underway. And while interest rates may be at record lows now, we shouldn’t pile up debt on the assumption they will stay there forever.

It would be also be good to see a frank debate about other ways to stem the erosion of government’s ability to accomplish collective goals – including the constant drive to cut taxes. Running deficits is one way to build badly needed infrastructure; it would be wiser to pay for at least some of it as we go through the tax system.

Still, our national political debate has been frozen for so long by neo-liberal thinking that it is heartening to see a major leader break from the pack. Trudeau deserves credit for challenging the orthodoxy.

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