In 2004, Paul Martin asked Justice John Gomery to lead a public inquiry into potential misspending in the federal Sponsorship Program, a relatively small investment of taxpayers' money to try to convince Quebeckers of the benefits of Canadian federalism in the aftermath of the 1995 referendum on Quebec separation.

The Gomery inquiry chose to focus exclusively on the sordid details of the money laundering and paid no attention to the deeper causes and sources of the problem: the dysfunctions of an existing centralized governing apparatus that is tearing the fabric of the country apart and the collusion of centralizing groups defending the status quo.

Ruth Hubbard is a senior fellow at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and the Centre on Governance at the University of Ottawa, and a senior partner of INVENIRE. She is the author of Profession: Public servant (INVENIRE Press, 2009) and co-author of Gomery's Blinders and Canadian Federalism (University of Ottawa Press, 2007).

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Gilles Paquet is professor emeritus at the Telfer School of Management and senior research fellow at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa. He has authored or edited over 35 books and published a large number of papers on economics, public management and governance.

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