Nothing to see here?

In mid-August, the federal New Democratic Party was making the same argument that federal Conservatives were: that there had to be a full investigation into the connections between the WE Charity and the federal Liberal government.

WE had been granted a sole-source contract to manage almost $1 billion in student COVID-19 support. Soon after the contract award was announced, it was revealed that the charity had paid thousands of dollars in honoraria to members of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s family.

As the issue heated up, Trudeau prorogued the House of Commons, halting the review of the charity by several House of Commons committees.

That was followed by the throne speech, and the Liberals’ agreement to back an NDP push for more access to paid sick days, a move that won the NDP’s support for the throne speech and forestalled an election.

And now, strangely, the NDP has voted to stop a Commons committee from continuing its examination of the WE Charity debacle. The motion to the Procedure and House Affairs Committee wanted to review WE Charity documents, to see how much of a role — if any — the WE scandal had on the prorogation decision, which shut down much of the review of WE. The NDP representative on the committee voted with the Liberals to stop the review.

Like everything else in the WE story, there’s just so much coincidence here.

The NDP argued that the Conservative motion seeking documents was both premature and incomplete.

The NDP claimed its move was part of trying to seek even more involved review.

“We believe one special committee, that is focused on these allegations, is the best way to proceed because otherwise what we’ve got not only is duplication but also potentially gaping holes between the various committees studying this at various times,” NDP House Leader Peter Julian told CTV News.

Indeed. There’s no reason for a committee to examine the document trail, because a yet-to-be-established committee might later do the same thing. Sounds like a very serious attempt to make sure we get to the bottom of the whole debacle.

The NDP may be being completely honest in its description of its reasoning.

But at the same time, to anyone with even a grain of skepticism, it sure looks like the bareknuckle world of political pragmatism may be playing a larger role than any sincere search for facts.

There is an old saying that a bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush.

And a House of Commons committee actually examining the document trail in the WE scandal is certainly worth far more than an examination by a committee that doesn’t exist yet, and may never exist.

Nothing to see here, folks. Just move along…