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227Liability of the Crown in Times of Pandemic behaviour either.14 The Ontario CLPA states clearly under section 8(2): “For greater certainty, nothing in clause (1) (a) subjects the Crown to liability for a tort that is not attributable to the acts or omissions of an officer, employee or agent of the Crown.” In short, if the servant can- not be sued, the chain is broken and the Crown is free from liability. Servants of the Crown are not immune from suit and can be sued before ordinary courts according to ordinary law.15 But indi- vidual civil servants are not likely to have the deep pockets neces- sary to make large payouts after successful lawsuits. Moreover, under the CLPA, the Crown is not liable for its own fault. Therefore, where harm is caused by institutional failures that cannot be attributed to identifiable individuals over long periods of time the Crown is not liable—as was the case in Hinse, where a claim for damages based on the Federal Minister of Justice’s refusal to exercise Crown’s power of mercy failed.16 Following Hinse, it would not be possible, for example, to sue the “Minister” or the “Government” generally for a series of decisions taken over the years in relation to, for instance, the funding of research on novel coronaviruses. Public Law Immunity: Immunity for Policy Decisions The belief in current legal thinking that the Crown is immune at com- mon law also subverts the CLPA and its provincial equivalents in a different way. While these statutes clearly establish recourse in tort against the Crown, courts have nevertheless developed a substantial body of law distinguishing governmental policy decisions (which are shielded from judicial scrutiny) from operational aspects. Moreover, the scope of “policy” decisions continues to grow, to the detriment of “operational” measures. In R v Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd. (Imperial), the Court defined “core policy” decisions shielded from suit as, “decisions as to a course or principle of action that are based on public policy considerations, such as economic, social and political factors, provided they are nei- ther irrational nor taken in bad faith.”17 This description is potentially very broad. As has been noted before, “Policy and operational acts 14. CLPA, supra note 3, s 10. 15. Albert Venn Dicey, The  Oxford  Edition  of  Dicey, ed by JWF Allison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) at 100. 16. Hinse  v  Canada  (Attorney  General), 2015 SCC 35 [Hinse]. 17. 2011 SCC 42 at para 90 [Imperial].