Elkton Is a Small City in a Remote Part of Canada.Its

Essay

Elkton is a small city in a remote part of Canada.Its economy struggled for several decades, but the discovery of rarium, a precious metal, in the surrounding hills had the potential to be enormously profitable for at least some of the local people.The government announced that it was holding a competition for the right to extract and sell the rarium.In an attempt to ensure that the local community benefitted from the project, the government also announced that the competition was restricted to individuals or companies with an established record of working in the area.In practice, that meant that only four business were entitled to submit bids: Wapiti & Sons Corp, Moose Mining Ltd, Cariboo Inc, and Muskox Extraction Co.Depending upon the price to be paid by the winning party, the venture promised to be extraordinarily lucrative.The individuals in control of those four entities, however, were not prepared to leave things to chance.While they each submitted a bid to the government, the agreed beforehand on three points: (a) Wapiti would offer a price somewhat lower than what the government anticipated, (b) the other parties would bid even less than Wapiti, and (c) Wapiti would share its eventual profits with the others.All of that occurred several years ago.As the bidders expected, Wapiti won the competition, received the right to mine the rarium, and shared its obscene profits with Moose, Cariboo, and Muskox.Having recently learned about the companies' agreement, the government is unhappy.What, if anything, can the government do about the situation? What outcome can the government hope to achieve? How will it achieve that end?