General

Tories table more censored detainee documents

Does or doesn’t Parliament have the right to review the documents?

Opposition MPs will have their hands full this Easter. On Thursday, the government delivered to the House of Commons 6,200 more pages of documents relating to Canada’s handling of Aghan detainees. This is the second time in less than two weeks that the government has released heavily-redacted material. The move came just one day after Justice Minister Rob Nicholson lashed out at the opposition, arguing that parliament has no right to demand full access to protected information. “I would remind the House that our parliamentary privileges are not indefinite nor unlimited, he noted on Wednesday. MPs report that the documents dumped in the House of Commons are heavily redacted. “We’re obviously going to be spending the next several days looking at them,” confirmed Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae. Rae says “the speaker is eventually going to have to rule on this question… Does Parliament have the right to review the documents?”

Globe and Mail

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