SNOBELEN: On the failing search to achieve peace with honour

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Ben Franklin famously opined that experience runs a dear school, but it’s the only one a fool will attend. I’ve proven old Ben right on more than one occasion. But recent events point to something Franklin missed.

Learning from experience is costly, but not nearly as costly as failing to learn from it. A few incidents over the last couple of weeks point to the price we all pay when governments fail to learn from expensive lessons. It seems our governments lack the courage to face failure, and so doom us to dump new money down old holes.

Take the sorry tale of electronic health records, for example. The quiet ending of Prescribe IT, a failed federal program to nudge prescription fulfilment out of the 8-track era, signalled the waste of $298 million over 10 long years. I suppose Canadians can be relieved that former CEO Michael Green was fired from his $900,000-a-year job, but I have little doubt that Green will be well compensated for this dismal failure.

Way back in 2009, the eHealth Ontario CEO was fired for similar failures, but only after receiving a $114,000 bonus and a $317,000 severance package. Failure pays well in the twisted world of electronic health records.