When partisan politics gets in the way of common sense

Extreme partisan party politics just confuses the hell out of me sometimes. It wears me out. The federal Conservative Party has been shouting for many months now that they want access to documents about why two prominent Chinese researchers were summarily dismissed from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg back in January of 2021, and apparently fled back to China. Public access to 250 pages of documentation has been denied by the Liberals on national security grounds thus far.

Now the Liberals, with the support of the NDP, have announced that an ad hoc parliamentary committee will be set up for just that purpose, with a panel of three retired judges to oversee things. The committee of MPs will have full access to the redacted documents, although, understandably, they will only make public those aspects that do not have national security implications, and they "will have the opportunity to appeal to an independent body of jurists if they disagree with any redactions".

Except it turns out the Conservatives, inexplicably, do not want to participate in this committee. They prefer their own plan, which would see the documents reviewed by a parliamentary law clerk, and which as far I can see accomplishes the same thing. You would think they would be keen to get to the bottom if it all, but instead they are calling it a cover-up and whitewashing. Head scratching.