OTTAWA, Ont. - One of the most unproductive legislative sittings in memory ended on the same sour note on which it began: with wrangling over the prime minister's power to shut down Parliament.
MPs spent their final hours before heading home for a 12-week summer break debating a Liberal proposal -- later defeated -- to limit the prime ministerial power to prorogue Parliament whenever he sees fit.
The debate rehashed criticism of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Dec. 30 decision to shut down Parliament until early March.
At the time, Harper contended the government needed the time to "recalibrate" its agenda. But the opposition maintained -- and repeated Thursday -- that prorogation was a ploy to duck a Commons motion instructing the government to turn over all documents related to the alleged torture of Afghan detainees.
The two issues were still hanging around like a bad smell in the final hours before the Commons adjourned Thursday night for the summer.
After months of bickering and tense backroom negotiations, Commons Speaker Peter Milliken gave his seal of approval to a multi-party deal that will give select MPs access to thousands of sensitive Afghan detainee documents.
Milliken's ruling means representatives of the Conservatives, Liberals and Bloc Quebecois will be able to start sifting through some 40,000 pages of documents as early as next month.
But it also means New Democrats will be shut out of the process.
The NDP walked out of last-ditch negotiations earlier this week, claiming the government had set conditions to prevent full disclosure of all relevant documents.
The party had hoped Milliken would find the agreement falls short of his historic April 27 ruling, in which the Speaker confirmed MPs' absolute right to unfettered access to all uncensored detainee documents.
Jack Harris, the NDP defence critic, was undeterred by Milliken's refusal to second-guess the consensus reached by three of the four parties. Harris predicted the government will continue to stonewall and said his party will be ready to move a contempt of Parliament motion in the fall if the document disclosure process breaks down.
And even though he signed onto the deal, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff admitted he's not entirely sure it will work either.
"I'm not fully convinced that it is possible to actually have success in this committee dealing with the documents," Ignatieff told a wrap-up news conference, adding that it all depends on the government acting in good faith.
Despite the rehashing of old complaints, the final hours were marked by an uncharacteristic burst of all-party co-operation on a couple of fronts.
MPs gave unanimous consent to expedite approval of a bill that would ensure notorious sex killer Karla Homolka won't be pardoned for her grisly crimes.
And they unanimously accelerated passage of another bill creating a national seniors' day.
Both must still be passed by the Senate, which is sitting for another few weeks to wrap up work on some the government's most pressing legislation, including its massive budget implementation bill and an all-party brokered deal on refugee reforms.
To this point, however, only two bills -- both important but routine legislation ensuring the government has money to operate -- have received royal assent so far this year. That's well short of the 24 that were passed by the summer hiatus last year.
Opposition leaders laid the blame for the unproductive sitting squarely on the Harper government and its hyper-partisan approach to governing.
"I think the prime minister believed when he took power in 2006 the right way to run a minority parliament was simply to intimidate everybody 24-7," Ignatieff said.
"Bully and bully and bully and bully up to the point where people say we've had enough."
Ignatieff said the government has recently shown some signs of working with opposition parties but only when backed into a corner with the parliamentary clock about to run out. He doubted that heralds a permanent change in attitude.
NDP Leader Jack Layton said Harper "likes to govern like he has a majority," relying on a "tired" Liberal party to prop it up.
"I think Canadians find it humiliating and I worry that it's scarring their faith in government, gutting their hope that any good could ever come from Ottawa."
Still, Layton said the partisan attacks in public belie the amount of work that's been going on behind the scenes among the parties. He predicted more of the same when Parliament resumes in late September: "A similar combination of bumpy rhetoric and, hopefully, some productive results."
Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe suggested Parliament will return to the same issue that dominated the winter and spring sitting: the right of MPs to hold the government to account.
He said the government could face a contempt of Parliament motion over its refusal to let ministerial aides testify at Commons committees investigating the Guergis-Jaffer affair and political interference in Access to Information requests.
Despite the parliamentary dysfunction, none of the opposition leaders is sabre rattling for an election in the fall. However, both Layton and Ignatieff said they'll be prepared for one if necessary.
