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One passage of the new report on Justin Trudeau’s trip to India deals with the public testimony given by Daniel Jean, the former national security adviser, before the parliamentary oversight committee on national security last April.

It reads: “As the NSIA (Jean) stated during his testimony: ‘***’.”

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The words of the statement that the now-retired Jean gave to the committee were redacted — along with most of the other interesting bits of the report.

Redacting testimony that is already in the public domain would seem somewhat overzealous for a new committee intent on persuading Canadians about its integrity.

The liberal use of the black pen became the focus of question period in the House of Commons Tuesday.

Conservative MP Peter Kent suggested the heavy redaction was aimed at preventing Liberal embarrassment over the diplomatic incident that ensued when it emerged that Jaspal Atwal, a man once convicted of the attempted murder of an Indian politician, was invited to official Canadian events in Mumbai and New Delhi.