Liberal MP Bob Rae holds blacked-out detainee-related pages released by the government.
The Harper government released the text of its pact with opposition MPs to share previously secret records on Afghan prisoners, confirming that the most confidential deliberations on the subject will be kept from parliamentarians.
The deal, which the NDP is boycotting, stipulates that there are two categories of documents that will be withheld from MPs.
These disclosure loopholes include records that the Harper government declares to be matters of cabinet confidentiality - advice for cabinet, briefs, memos or records of cabinet discussions - as well as any legal advice provided to Ottawa by Justice Department lawyers.
It says: "Cabinet confidences and information subject to solicitor-client privilege are classes of information that the Parliament of Canada has long recognized are sensitive and may require protection from disclosure."
The accord between the Conservatives, the Liberals and Bloc Québécois will see three MPs - one from each party - start scrutinizing uncensored records on Canada's record in Afghanistan as early as July.
The Liberals defend the deal, saying they can live with these exemptions from disclosure and note that a panel of three arbiters - former judges - will vet documents that Ottawa claims are cabinet confidences or legal advice to ensure this censorship is justified.
Keeping legal advice secret could be a major exemption given that the legality of what Canada was doing - and whether it could be in violation of the Geneva Conventions - is a crucial question in the detainee controversy. The Geneva Convention makes it a war crime to transfer detainees to those who would abuse them and obliges the detaining power to recover transferred prisoners if they are being maltreated.
University of Ottawa professor Amir Attaran, an advocate for greater disclosure on detainees, calls the deal a failure.
"It is an own-goal for the opposition if they sign this agreement, surpassing any fumble seen in the World Cup," Prof. Attaran said.
NDP MP Jack Harris has said this deal doesn't fit with the spirit of a historic ruling in April, when Commons Speaker Peter Milliken declared that Parliament had an absolute authority to demand un-redacted versions of the detainee documents. The record exemptions protect more than just the Tories, who only inherited the war in Afghanistan when they took power in 2006.
"The things you need to know - What did the government know? When did they know it? What advice were they given? Did they follow it? - that's the stuff we will never see," NDP defence critic Jack Harris said.
Michel Drapeau, a retired Forces colonel and a professor of military law, has said he thinks it's important to keep secret memos for cabinet and deliberations by ministers in order to protect the power to give "unvarnished advice" to government.
But he says he thinks the panel of MPs should be allowed to see legal advice from government lawyers. The George W. Bush adminstration, he noted, waived the solicitor-client privilege to allow the release of controversial memos that advised what maltreatment was legally acceptable.
Mr. Harris alleged the Liberals - a party currently divided over Michael Ignatieff's leadership - don't want to risk a showdown that could trigger a trip to the polls.
"The Liberals were looking for a deal as far as I could see. They're not prepared to take this to the point of confrontation that could result in an election," Mr. Harris said.
Tuesday's deal - which put flesh on the bones of a May 14 agreement in principle - caps seven months of fractious debate that included an unscheduled shuttering of Parliament and threats to trigger an election. Opposition MPs have demanded access to uncensored government records to test repeat allegations that Canada knowingly handed over prisoners captured in Afghanistan to torture by local interrogators.