This book revisits the tainted blood tragedy that Canada experienced in the latter part of the 20th century. It presents an argument in brief about the tragedy being the result of a cascade of pathologies of governance. Then it challenges the conventional wisdom and its explanation boiling down to four ill-founded accusations. After proposing a systemic reconstruction of the tragedy, it develops some responses to the systemic governance failures. The conclusion takes stock of the modest progress in the repairs of the toxic system in place, and the postface focuses on the demise of critical thinking as a fundamental source of the crisis and on a need to refurbish critical thinking if advances are to be expected in what remains a work in progress.

Gilles Paquet (1936–2019), O.C., MRSC, was Professor Emeritus at the Telfer School of Management and a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre on Governance of the University of Ottawa. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Royal Society of Arts of London, and served as President of the Royal Society of Canada (2003–2005). He studied at Laval, Queen's (Canada) and at the University of California (Los Angeles) where he was Postdoctoral Fellow in Economics. He taught at Carleton University for almost 20 years before joining the University of Ottawa in 1981. He received honorary doctorates from Queen's, Laval, and Thompson Rivers University, received the Public Service Citation Award of APEX, and was made Honorary Member of l'Association des économistes québécois. He was made Member of the Order of Canada in 1992.

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