So compelling has the United States election been that most of us barely noticed the Canadian polls in October. In truth, Canadians gave it scarcely more attention, quietly returning a Conservative government to power with a strengthened mandate - albeit, still a minority in Parliament.

Then, as Barack Obama rapidly turned his mind to naming a Cabinet and preparing an economic rescue package, Canada's politics suddenly got interesting. Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that not only would he buck the trend in industrial countries of pumping money into their sputtering economies, but he would cut spending to keep the Canadian budget balanced.

It's one thing to keep the balance sheet positive when, like in Jamaica, you are carrying a heavy debt burden. But when you've got money in the bank and a surplus to work with, refusing to spend in a recession - particularly when your trading partners are doing it as well - seems a tad ideological.

And a right-wing ideology at variance with Canadian norms is one thing of which Harper has been accused. So, when he announced that he would cut funding to the arts and political parties as a means to keep the cheque book in the black, he stirred up a blizzard.

The moves revealed something of Harper's tin ear. A man accused of being a control freak, and who takes counsel from few, the prime minister appeared decidedly out of step with the Canadian mainstream. Voters in Quebec saw culture-spending cuts as a thinly veiled device to weaken nationalists. The political opposition saw cuts to public funding of political parties as a thinly veiled effort to kill the Liberal Party.

Support

At the moment, the Conservatives enjoy the support of much of the Canadian business community, and so are relatively flush with cash. An end to public funding - which curiously, we in Jamaica had recently discovered as a Canadian virtue, at an event organised by our Electoral Commission - would do the Liberals serious damage, given their current weakness.

Nothing unites like a common foe. The Liberals and the left-leaning New Democrats rallied and became best of friends. Even more remarkably, the Bloc Quebecois (BQ), which wants Quebec to secede from Canada, and which, therefore, usually eschews all its federal partners, agreed to support the alliance.

A practically unprecedented political agreement emerged. Canada, which has little experience with coalition governments, was greeted with a promise by the Liberals and NDP to topple the Conservatives, and form a government. Sealing the deal, the BQ pledged to support the coalition for the next year-and-a-half, ensuring it could form a working parliamentary majority.

A confidence vote was pending in Parliament. The Conservatives were now sure to fall. Harper could have asked the governor general to call fresh elections. But the governor general would have faced an unusual dilemma. With another party able to form a working majority in Parliament, she would have had the option of ignoring Harper's call and asking the Liberals to take office.

Parliament prorogued

She cut short a foreign trip to return to Ottawa and deal with the crisis. In the end, she opted for the middle road. She prorogued Parliament until January, enabling Harper to postpone the confidence vote while his government prepared a budget.

Meanwhile, divisions in the Liberal Party opened up. Its leader fell, to be replaced by a former Harvard lecturer, Michael Ignatieff. Decidedly cooler to the coalition than his predecessor, Ignatieff, may decide not to press ahead with the no-confidence vote come January.

Thus, Harper may live to fight another day. But he will lick his wounds, having learned the price of hubris by a weak leader.

John Rapley is president of Caribbean Policy Research Institute(CaPRI) an independent think tank affiliated to the UWI, Mona. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerejm.com.