Paquet’s Labyrinth

Early this spring, the City of Toronto’s Public Health Department released a report that estimated that about 450,000 Torontonians become sick each year as a result of ingesting tainted food. The causes for the illnesses were found to be as numerous as they were avoidable: most were caused by sick and often unsanitary food handlers. The news item was not unusual. It was filed with other happenings pointing to recurring problems that had long been anticipated but that had not received an intelligent response from government: the closing of local pools, the closing of the Chalk River atomic plant, the closing of much of General Motors.

It would seem as though a lot of things go wrong in government as public officials—politicians and public servants—simply muddle through problems that have been allowed to linger for too long. Furious with this state of affairs, Gilles Paquet has come to a clear and sobering conclusion: governments are not responding well because they...