A couple of days before the last federal election, Stephen Harper told me the economic plan that Justin Trudeau was pitching to the electorate was “all unicorns and rainbows."

While we never truly learn until decades later the long-term ramifications of economic decisions made today, a recent paper by the federal department of finance has shocked political watchers and given weight to the former prime minister’s comments from a year and a half ago.

The report says our debt is on track to hit a whopping $1 trillion within 15 years. It says the budget won’t be balanced until 2055. (Yup, you read that right.) It says the important debt-to-GDP ratio won’t be going down as the Trudeau Liberals said it would.

This contradicts key promises Trudeau made during the election campaign and calls all of his numbers into question.

The government paper was released quietly, two days before Christmas, at a time when hardly any politicians, staffers or media people were around to notice it.

After reading its shocking contents, which my colleague Candice Malcolm and I shone a light on last week, I can see why the Liberal government wanted to bury it.

It arrives at its long-term economic projections using the current fiscal trends Trudeau’s Liberal government has put in place.

After its authors added into the mix Canada’s aging population and the fact fewer workers will be supporting the services that upcoming retirees rely upon, they concluded Canada’s finances are on shaky ground.

They actually write that if growth is lower than expected – which happens all the time – and if program spending goes up by more than a minimal amount – which also happens regularly – this “would be sufficient to put at risk the fiscal sustainability of the federal government.”

To be clear, this doesn’t mean the government’s going to go bankrupt and put shutters on its windows.

As Carleton University business professor Ian Lee told me on my SiriusXM morning talk show, as a sovereign state we can print our own money to get ourselves out of financial troubles even as large as this.

But, he added, we’ll pay a price if it does get to that point. We’ll turn into a country like Greece, where we’ll be forced to make dreadful decisions.

Taxes will need to be raised at the same time as entitlements are cut. Whoever buys our bonds will demand a steep rate of return to make up for the fact we can’t be trusted to pay our bills. It’ll be a mess.

One of Trudeau’s great victories during the last campaign was to get the electorate on board with the idea it was good practice to run what he called “modest” deficits when we’re not in a recession.

This went against longstanding liberal orthodoxy. It goes against the teachings of John Maynard Keynes, the godfather of liberal economics and a champion of deficit spending done right.

Keynes and others believe that you can run deficits during an economic downturn for the purpose of financing infrastructure projects that serve as assets to boost the economy.

But as soon as conditions return to normal, you have to balance the books and start paying down the debt so you’re in fighting shape for the next time there’s an economic downturn.

The bigger problem is that Trudeau’s promised “modest” deficits have already grown to be far from modest. We’re now looking at close to $30 billion for just one fiscal year.

That’s not what people voted for and it’s exactly what this report, by Trudeau’s own finance department, cautions against.

But can we avoid this scenario? Yes, the report concludes. The doom and gloom prediction is just one possibility. It’ll happen if growth is lousy and we keep spending more.

But we can still turn it around by making smart, fiscally sound choices now while not kicking the can further down the road. Will the Liberals do this? Let’s hope so.

It’s important to note they don’t disagree with this assessment. These are “scenarios that could occur based on current trends and policies”, Annie Donolo, Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s press secretary, told me in an email.

“This report shows the impact this long period of slow growth has had on the country’s bottom line, and speaks to the importance of making smart, necessary investments to strengthen the middle class and grow our economy long-term,” she added.

But the pressure is now on for the government to alter their fiscal path and steer clear of unicorns and rainbows.

You can hear me weekday mornings, 7a.m.-10 a.m. ET, hosting National Post Radio on Sirius XM Canada Talks Channel 167. And join my mailing list at www.furey.ca to get a sneak peek at my shocking new book on national security and terrorism that’s coming out soon.