CANADIANS are not a people of excess. “Why did the Canadian cross the road? To get to the middle,” they joke. Temperance served them well during the global financial crisis. While property bubbles burst from Miami to Malaga and governments bailed out the banks that had puffed them up, Canada’s prudent financial institutions carried on, largely unaided by the taxpayer. Its economy recovered quickly, helped by higher prices for oil, one of its main exports.

But something unCanadian has been happening of late. While consumers in post-bubble economies have been working off debt, Canadians have been piling it on. Consumer debt is a record 165% of disposable income, not far from the level it was in America before the subprime crisis. Most of that borrowing has been spent on houses. Canadian housing is now 34% pricier than its long-term average, when compared with disposable incomes.

The housing bubble has not figured much in the campaign leading up to Canada’s election on October 19th (see article). That is not surprising. None of the three contenders to be prime minister—Stephen Harper, a Conservative who currently holds the job; Justin Trudeau, leader of the centrist Liberal Party; and Thomas Mulcair of the left-leaning New Democrats—wants to tell voters that their houses are probably worth less than they think. Yet the winner may well have to deal with the consequences of a housing and debt bust.

Canada has already flirted with recession this year. The downturn in oil prices caused GDP to shrink in the first half. Growth has since resumed, but the economy remains vulnerable. The burden of consumer debt, which is manageable at the moment, would become unaffordable if interest rates or unemployment were to rise sharply. Canada is counting on America’s recovery, coupled with a decline in the value of its currency, to boost exports and growth. If these things fail to happen, debt could drag down Canada’s economy—though probably not its well-capitalised banks (see article). This will not be the only economic worry facing the next prime minister. Growth has been a plodding 2% since 2000 and is likely to slow as the population ages. Labour productivity has grown at less than half the American rate. The many causes include creaky infrastructure, low levels of business innovation, barriers to trade—both within Canada and between it and other countries—and a complex tax system. None of the three main candidates to be prime minister has proposed a comprehensive programme for correcting these deficiencies. Granted, the prime minister’s powers are limited: removing internal barriers to trade, for example, requires co-operation from the powerful provinces. And good ideas can be found in the programmes of all three parties. Mr Trudeau has said he would run temporary deficits to invest in infrastructure. Mr Mulcair wants to offer low-cost child care, which would bring more women into the workforce. Mr Harper would probably be the most vigorous champion of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal among a dozen countries, which would give the economy a competitive jolt. But the candidates are hawking some bad ideas as well. All three want to cut taxes for small businesses, which already get a lower rate than big ones. That would sharpen their incentive to stay small, one reason for Canada’s poor productivity.

In the short run, there is not much the next prime minister can do to ward off the dangers facing the economy. The federal government can further tighten rules for mortgage insurers to rein in the housing market, but (rightly) it cannot tell the Bank of Canada how to set monetary policy. That makes it all the more important that the election’s winner, in concert with the provinces, should promote competition, innovation and new infrastructure with supremely unCanadian zeal.