With Rona, Harper dodges another tense takeover

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I doubt Stephen Harper has personally talked to Lowe's management team, but he might want to give them a call to say thanks. By withdrawing their bid for Rona Inc., they're saving him for what would have been a political firestorm.

This isn't the first time his party's found a hidden emergency exit. Another appeared when London Stock Exchange Group tried to pair up with the Toronto Stock Exchange. In that case, a consortium of Canadian financial institutions emerged as a saviour, and the federal government walked off the battlefield without ever having to make a tough call.

The question now is whether Mr. Harper realizes he's been lucky. Everyone and their mother knows we need more clarity on foreign takeover rules, but if he believes that he can keep dodging these decisions, he has little incentive to provide it.

While he mulls it over, here's something to consider: while the government got lucky, Rona shareholders got the short end of the stick. Before the takeover offer, the Quebec-based company's stock had fallen over 50 per cent in five years and the mere thought of calling the home improvement retailer a strategic asset prompted jokes like these.  (A taste: if Rona is a strategic asset, so too is Nickelback.)

Lowe's clearly still wants to make something happen – its formal statement says as much. And for its own sake, it needs to strike a deal. The company's Canadian expansion just hasn't taken off. It's just that at this time, the road to success was filled with far too many potholes.

During her very first week since being elected premier, Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois reiterated her campaign rhetoric, offering Lowe's little hope. "I think that we want to prevent the sale of our headquarters to foreign companies," she said the day after being elected. Though it's true that she never offered a clear path of how exactly she would do this, the offer had all the characteristics of becoming a political nightmare.