The Liberals have already abandoned their balanced-budget pledge. Will they still be able to lower Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio by the end of their mandate?

Oh, how quickly fiscal projections from a late-summer campaign commitment can turn into dust. Last year, when Justin Trudeau pitched a few years of deficits and billions for a long-term infrastructure plan, he capped it off with a promise to balance the budget and 2019-20 and reduce the federal debt-to-GDP ratio to 27 per cent.

The Liberal language was categorical. “We will run modest short-term deficits of less than $10 billion in each of the next two fiscal years to fund historic investments in infrastructure and our middle class. After the next two fiscal years, the deficit will decline and our investment plan will return Canada to a balanced budget in 2019.”

The party’s five-year plan for the debt-to-GDP ratio? “In every year of our plan, federal debt-to-GDP will continue to fall,” read the party platform, which included a handy bar chart that visualized it all.

At the Maclean’s Town Hall last December, Trudeau reiterated a firm commitment to both balance the budget by the end of his first term—and reduce that debt-to-GDP ratio consistently.

Budget 2016 revealed the government’s latest fiscal projections: no guarantee of a balanced budget by 2019-20, though robust economic growth could reduce the red ink; and only very modest reductions in the debt-to-GDP ratio.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau certainly didn’t hide the government’s revised plans; they’re plainly written into his budget documents. But the Liberals have proven the fragility of an ambitious campaign promise made during turbulent economic times, and made anew on live television a month into a sunny mandate.

Check out the full Town Hall exchange between Trudeau and Maclean’s political editor Paul Wells.