A $17.8B deficit today is certainly better than a $17.8B deficit in the early 1990's (let alone the $39.0B deficit we had back then, or the absolutely monstrous $37.2B deficit from Pierre Trudeau's last budget in 1984/85).  I agree that a deficit of a bit shy of 1% of GDP is "largely benign" and had this happened in 2012/13 or 2013/14 I wouldn't see a problem with it.

However in 2012/13 and 2013/14 we were still digging out after a deep recession, in 2016/17 we should be preparing for the NEXT recession, and that means getting our fiscal house in order while it is easy to do so.