EDITORIAL: Oops – another Lavscam cover-up

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That didn’t take long.

Just the other day we wrote the following in this space: “Let’s hope the Liberals are not so deeply cynical that they will pull the same stunts twice in a row. That said, the shamelessness of their past actions is a strong indicator that they may try it again.”

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The headline of that editorial was “Ethics Committee must be cover-up free.” Oops!

The other week Liberal MPs shamefully shut down the Justice Committee, not taking up Jody Wilson-Raybould on her offer to testify a second time. They then wrapped up the whole probe.

A door had closed but then a window opened. While the Justice Committee wasn’t conducting itself ethically, there was hope to get justice from the Ethics Committee.

Note the tense: There “was” hope. Not anymore.

On Tuesday the Ethics Committee met and — shamefully — almost immediately the Liberal MPs voted against a Conservative motion to invite Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott to testify.

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There were a couple of reasons to hope that sanity would prevail this time around.

The committee chair — Bob Zimmer — is a Conservative. And while deputy chair Nathaniel Erskine-Smith is a Liberal, he has a reputation as something of a principled maverick. Erskine-Smith was previously one of only two Liberal MPs who voted for a public inquiry into Lavscam.

This time around though, Erskine-Smith voted with the rest of the Liberals to take a pass on inviting these two witnesses. The argument was that we’ve already heard what we need to hear, that it’s unlikely we’d hear much more and that we should have faith in the Ethics Commissioner’s investigation.

There are a number of problems with that logic.

For starters, we have yet to hear from Philpott. And when it comes to Wilson-Raybould, she wouldn’t be showing up kicking and screaming. She’s volunteered to speak. That tells us she has something to say, something worth hearing.

It’s also disingenuous to place any faith in the Ethics Commissioner right now because Mario Dion is unfortunately dealing with a health issue and has taken a leave of absence but has not had an interim commissioner temporarily replace him.

Every step the Liberals take away from transparency should be another step towards an RCMP probe of this mess.

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