This month Christian Paradis, Canada’s industry minister, said in parliament: “We are pragmatic and welcome foreign investment”. He has a funny way of showing it.

Shortly before midnight on Friday, Mr Paradis said he intended to block the $5.3bn takeover of Progress Energy Resources, a Canadian gas producer, by Petronas, Malaysia’s national oil company. The decision was misguided, threatening a deal that is good for Progress shareholders and for Canada’s industry. Worse than the ruling itself, though, was the arbitrary and opaque process from which it emerged.

Since BHP Billiton’s $39bn takeover of Potash Corporation was blocked two years ago, international investors have been reassured that the Canadian government would intervene in acquisitions only very rarely.