Yesterday was the big day that the Commons defence committee had been waiting for – prime minister Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff, Katie Telford, had volunteered to testify about what she knew about the General Vance allegations, and the moment that she volunteered, opposition parties should have known that she wasn’t going to actually say anything of use to them. (And the fact that she volunteered after the government has been pushing the point for weeks that staffers shouldn’t be testifying because minsters are responsible under our constitutional framework is another problem, not the least of which is that they appear to have given up on being consistent).

And for nearly two hours, full of interruptions, points of order, and a whole lot of preening for the cameras by opposition MPs, Telford basically told them nothing of any consequence. She didn’t of the nature of the allegations, but she reached out to ensure that they weren’t a “safety issue” (i.e. assault as opposed to harassment). But in spite of her concerns, they didn’t learn any details, and on a broader picture, she often looks back in hindsight to wonder if she should have been pushing harder for transformational change in the military, or to look past Vance’s assurances that he was committed to doing that work. We should have expected that there wouldn’t be any sweeping new revelations going into this, and there weren’t. Of course, to the Conservatives, this “proves” that there is some kind of cover-up, but trying to go after Telford seems like a poor use of time when Harjit Sajjan is right there, waiting to be held to account for his numerous failings on this file. There needs to be some accountability on this, but the opposition just keeps flailing around performatively rather than being focused in holding the one person to account who needs it, and it’s not Telford.

Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt equates Telford to someone from the bomb squad in a movie, carefully dealing with possible explosives to ensure the PM doesn’t come to harm. Matt Gurney makes the salient point that it’s hard to fathom why Sajjan or Telford didn’t do more once they learned the PCO investigation was stalled (though I’m not really keen on Gurney trying to police Telford’s feminism).

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau announced a plan to bypass provinces and start delivering rapid tests directly to businesses who are looking to use them.
• Trudeau shrugged off Doug Ford’s new attack ads against him, and suggested that Ontario has not come forward with suggestions as to how to “fix” the border issue.
• On the subject of vaccine patents, Trudeau won’t definitively say he’s in favour of waiving them (but it may not matter as the patents may be held elsewhere).
• The government plans to sue a Montreal firm to recover the $81 million they spent on N95 masks that turned out to be largely defective.
• The taxpayers ombudsman finds that the CRA is sometimes taking weeks to verify eligibility for pandemic benefits for those who need them.
• My weekend column looks at how Commons committees are all at the point of utter dysfunction because MPs are too busy being partisan dicks to one another.

Odds and ends:

In light of the belief that Justin Trudeau can apparently create vaccines out of thin air, I found an old Martha Stewart parody for suggestions on how that might be accomplished. pic.twitter.com/TOAI9hJTWh

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 7, 2021

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.