We'll tell you how you can oppose us

Gerry Ritz is understandably backtracking from his party's concerted effort to block any Parliamentary investigation into last year's listeria outbreak and other food safety issues. But Ritz' apparent theory about the committee looks to be even more disturbing than that of the Cons who disrupted it from within:

The meeting adjourned before members could vote on the competing proposals because a Conservative member of the committee "filibustered for over an hour" and "ran out the clock," Allen told the House of Commons.

Ritz shot back: "If we did not want the committee working, we could have just vetoed the whole darn thing up front. We actually are looking forward to a non-partisan report from the opposition, working in conjunction with our government members."

Which raises a couple of questions: when exactly does Ritz think the Cons were granted a "veto" over the proceedings of a committee where they're in the minority? And how likely is it that a party so obsessed with immediate perception will actually provide meaningful cooperation to a potentially embarrassing investigation if their starting point is a belief that they're entitled to shut it down by fiat?