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Whoever is masterminding the Liberal response to the SNC-Lavalin scandal is confusing the anchor and the life jacket. To be clear, the life jacket is the one that keeps you afloat … the anchor is the heavy thing.

The justice committee Liberals — who are obviously not mariners — met Wednesday only to shut the committee down for a week, to stall on allowing Jody Wilson-Raybould back to complete her testimony, giving every indication possible that they weren’t really very interested in hearing from her at all anymore.

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There is nothing opposition MPs could have done more effectively to juice up an already highly-charged saga than the five Liberals’ blatant and televised amputation of what a committee named justice ought to be doing. Which is to hear from the central character in this story — free to speak fully and without the restraint of various privileges — the full account of why she left cabinet, and why another senior minister, Jane Philpott, felt conscience-bound to leave in solidarity with her.

There is nothing opposition MPs could have done more effectively to juice up an already highly-charged saga

The same committee has also killed opposition efforts to call Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff, Katie Telford, PMO advisers Elder Marques and Mathieu Bouchard, the former chief of staff to Ms. Wilson-Raybould, Jessica Prince, and notably the only figure who really has the whole story, the prime minister himself.