At first it seemed like today was going to be the big day. Jody Wilson-Raybould had agreed to meet the justice committee to tell “her truth.” On his way into Cabinet, Justin Trudeau said he was “pleased” that she would be able to appear at committee. The committee agreed to give her the thirty minutes she requested off the top instead of the usual five or ten for an opening statement. Some MPs wanted to try and get the hearing moved from after QP to beforehand (never mind that it’s when all of the parties hold their caucus meetings) in order to be able to ask the PM any questions that might arise from the testimony. And then, surprising probably nobody who paid attention, Wilson-Raybould sent another letter to committee, expressing her “concerns” that the Order in Council that waived solicitor-client privilege wasn’t enough for her to tell the full story.

Here’s JWR’s letter expressing concerns: #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/cAvJG9CI2b

— Vassy Kapelos (@VassyKapelos) February 27, 2019

At this point, it’s starting to feel like a game – that Wilson-Raybould’s attempt to keep controlling the narrative is running out of runway, given that Michael Wernick called her out and Justin Trudeau went and waived solicitor-client privilege (unnecessarily, if you listen to some of the legal commentary out there), and now she’s trying to sow doubt that she’s still not completely free to speak, in order to keep up the narrative that she’s the victim or the hero, distracting from her poor record as justice minister. And it’s starting to feel like the more song and dance that she keeps putting up in order to keep from speaking, the less there is to what she has to say. But maybe I’m getting cynical after a decade on the Hill.

Meanwhile, former litigator Andrew Roman takes a deeper look into the portents of doom for SNC-Lavalin if they were subject to prosecution and even a ten-year ban from federal contracts, and finds them to be less dire than advertised, which makes any alleged wrongdoing by the government to protect them all the more baffling.

Good reads:

• New figures from StatsCan shows that child poverty reduced by a third between 2015 and 2017 – in large part because of the Canada Child Benefit.
• Industry groups tell the Senate that they want the government to replace Bill C-48’s West Coast tanker ban with stringent international regulations instead.
• A new report on the state of combatting sexual misconduct in the military shows frustratingly slow progress (which is probably not a surprise).
• Next month, a judge will decide whether Omar Khadr can consider his eight-year sentence to have expired.
• A Somali man with a criminal history who crossed the border irregularly has had his refugee claim denied.
• The Conservatives have served notice that they plan to move a Supply Day motion around the production of documents for the VADM Mark Norman case.
• Andrew Scheer defended his speaking to the “yellow vester” crowd last week, and shrugged off Senator Tkachuk’s suggestions that they “roll over” the Liberals.
• Jagmeet Singh says that now that he has a seat in Parliament, he’ll get action on affordable housing. As leader of the third party? Really? How, exactly?
• Here’s a look at the takeaway for Maxime Bernier from Monday’s by-election results.
• A Quebec court has struck down the province’s plan to legislate away their 18,000-case immigration backlog, saying they need to keep processing them.
• Jason Kenney wants to abolish desk-thumping in the Alberta legislature (which I find better than the obnoxious ovations that happen in Ottawa, for the record).
• Chantal Hébert goes through the by-election results to find the lessons for each of the parties and their leaders.
• Likewise, Éric Grenier crunches the results for his own reading of the by-election narratives.
• Andrew Coyne declares that it’s time we start talking about the fact that poverty is falling, and that we are measuring it better these days.
• My column looks at Samara Canada’s latest report on civic literacy, and finds a big hole in their findings, if we want to improve the state of civics in this country.

Odds and ends:

It’s the 100^thanniversary of the wedding of Princess Patricia of Connaught, who was not only the first “modern” princess but had strong ties to Canada.

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