It’s not even a sitting week, and yet we were treated to another instalment of the parliamentary clown show that has infected our House of Commons. The Procedure and House Affairs committee held an emergency meeting to demand that David Johnston appear before them to explain his reasons for not recommending a public inquiry. But the moment they got there, the chair said that Johnston was already scheduled to appear at the committee on June 6th, and that this had been arranged previously, and it just confirmed that this insistence he appear right away was just really, really bad theatre.
And then it went downhill from there, as MPs spent the next four hours debating a motion for Johnston to appear even sooner than the 6th, for no less than three hours, alone, because remember, they need to put on a bit song and dance about how they’re so serious! about all of these allegations. As I said, bad theatre. And then, the Liberals and NDP decided to try and be clever about this, and include a recommendation in the motion that all party leaders go through the security clearance process in order to read the full report and all of its classified evidence used to compile it. Well, that didn’t go over very well, and in the end, the Conservatives voted against their own motion because they didn’t want to be called out for refusing to actually read the full documents.
After 4ish hours, here's what PROC agreed to today.
Note: This is the final version of a Conservative motion, but in the end, CPC & Bloc voted against after Liberal & NDP MPs amended it to remove summons, include security clearance lines.
Read more: https://t.co/Y8YBZjm1of pic.twitter.com/pWn0a669xA
— Rachel Aiello (@rachaiello) May 25, 2023
Spending four hours to try and sound tougher about a pre-scheduled meeting, to give themselves the last word, is just one more reason why our Parliament is no longer a serious institution. It’s appalling that they have wasted everyone’s time and resource like this, because Michael Cooper needed to make himself look like a tough guy. Inexcusable.
Ukraine Dispatch:
Wagner Group mercenaries are preparing to turn over control of their positions in Bakhmut to Russian soldiers, while Ukraine says that Wagner is only turning over positions on the outskirts of the city, and that they have drawn Russian forces into the city, where they are inflicting high casualties and weakening Russian defensive lines elsewhere. A prisoner swap took place for 106 Ukrainian soldiers, some of them captured in the fighting in Bakhmut. Russian control of one of the dams along the Dnipro river is causing flooding because they haven’t been working to level the water flow with the other dams in the network.
106 more Ukrainian POWs returned to the government-controlled territory today. 8 officers & 98 privates and sergeants that fought in and around Bakhmut, have been brought home in a new prisoner's exchange pic.twitter.com/AMotg55Inj
— UkraineWorld (@ukraine_world) May 25, 2023
"Simply the best."
Tina TurnerTotal combat losses of the enemy from February 24, 2022 to May 25, 2023: pic.twitter.com/qH3EOIis8H
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) May 25, 2023