An inconvenient question

Alison has already brought the snark about the Cons' habit of blacking out documents. But yesterday's Question Period offered another revelation about a document which the Cons are refusing to release publicly - and this one looks to have the potential to add another front to the detainee treatment scandal:

Hon. Jack Layton (Toronto—Danforth, NDP):...

Since 2003, Canada has been sending warships to the Arabian Sea to participate in the American-led Operation Enduring Freedom. We learn now, due to documents that we have obtained, that the government signed, on October 12, an agreement regarding the transfer of prisoners taken during these operations. We tried to find out what the terms of the agreement are but the Department of National Defence has blackened out all the terms.

Where are the detainees going, Guantanamo?

It's a sure sign of an unwanted question that Harper could only respond by changing the subject entirely in order to become the latest politician to claim his party has gained a meaningful advantage through the support of Buzz Hargrove. (And we all know how well that strategy has worked out for others.)

But the new Middle Eastern detainee question figures to be a source of major problems. After all, in this case, the agreement would lie on the Cons' shoulders alone. And the issue will be doubly damning if the Cons continue to try to hide the documentation - in contrast to the Afghan agreements, which were at least made public when they were signed.

We'll see whether Harper simply hopes to ignore the question going forward, or whether the Cons will at least offer some transparency to what they've signed onto. But either way, the answers figure to tie the Cons further into the U.S.' foreign policy, in addition to highlighting Harper's continuing culture of secrecy. And that building reputation figures to do far more damage to the Cons than almost anything the agreement itself would figure to contain.