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Chretien and Martin, of course, were re-elected with a second majority in 1997 — because, by then, their earlier harsh medicine was just beginning to bear fruit. Unlike Rae, they’d made the hard but correct choices early enough — just barely — to allow the corresponding political sting to fade, and economic seeds to bud, by election time.

Where’s the parallel today? Simply put, Trudeau and Morneau could curb some promised new federal spending immediately, rather than two or three years in, when doing so will surely be politically tougher, because of accumulated baggage and the proximity of another election.

Specifically, they could ratchet back some of the nearly $10 billion a year they’ve promised to spend on “infrastructure investment.” They wouldn’t need to cancel the doubling of the Conservatives’ $65 billion, ten-year infrastructure plan to $125 billion — only delay some of it. “Social infrastructure” and “green infrastructure” were painfully vague propositions to begin with. Cut the annual outlay in half, spend what’s left on patching up decaying overpasses in, say, Montreal, and bank the rest.

Doing this might not get them back to the promised deficit of $10 billion — but they’d be considerably closer to the mark than they are now.

There are a couple of good arguments against doing what I’ve just proposed. One is that Canada’s debt-to-GDP ratio today is just above 30 per cent, a far cry from the nosebleed level in the 1990s. Another is that the Trudeau Liberals campaigned and won on a platform of borrowing to fund infrastructure spending. Surely curtailing this, for any reason, would be deemed a deal-breaking betrayal? The opposition would smell blood, close in and seize “sunny ways” by the throat.

But here’s the thing: The opposition will smell blood regardless. The Liberal Party benefited for years, especially in Ontario, from its reputation for fiscal probity. This is one of Trudeau’s two emerging weak flanks, the other being security. Shoring it up will get no easier as time passes and economic shocks mount, as they do. It will only get harder.