By Mark Bourrie

    OTTAWA, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Prime Minister's Office officials said Wednesday Parliament will be suspended until March 3, with a budget being introduced the next day.

    The Canadian government has used the traditional power to prorogue Parliament, which ends the session and gives the government a fresh start when it begins sitting again in just over two months.

    Dimitri Soudas, spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, told reporters at a mid-day briefing that the government will use the extra time away from Parliament to work on its economic policies.

    He said that with the recession ending this is the time to engage with constituents, stakeholders and businesses in order to listen to Canadians, identify priorities and to set the next stage of our agenda.

    "We want to make sure the economy stays on track ... and returned to balanced budgets," he said.

    The announcement came as almost all of the political offices were shut down for Christmas and New Year's holidays and opposition critics were back in their home constituencies.

    IMMEDIATE CONDEMNATION FROM OPPOSITION PARTIES

    In a statement issued Wednesday afternoon, the leader of the opposition Liberal Party, Michael Ignatieff, said, "Mr. Harper is showing his disregard for the democratic institutions of our country. The decision to prorogue is about one thing and one thing only - avoiding the scrutiny of Parliament at a time when this government is facing tough questions about their conduct in covering up the detainee scandal."

    "It's clear Mr. Harper will stop at nothing to prevent the truth about his government's actions from coming to light - even at the expense of Canada's critical economic recovery," Ignatieff said.

    Michel Guimond, spokesman for the Bloc Quebecois party, accused the government of "dodging its responsibilities" and claimed Parliament was suspended to stifle criticism of the government's policy of handing suspected Taliban and al Qaeda fighters captured in Afghanistan over to the Kabul regime, which has reportedly tortured detainees.

    Under the Canadian system, prorogation shuts down all committees of Parliament, kills all legislation that has not yet been passed, and transfers almost all power over the day-to-day workings of government to the Prime Minister, his cabinet and their advisors.

    In reality, it stifles the political opposition parties. They have been trying for just over a year to gain ground after a 2008 federal election that saw none of the four major political parties in Canada win a clear mandate to govern.

    An unusual attempt by the three opposition parties to form a coalition government last autumn was killed when Harper prorogued Parliament in December, 2008.

    Parliament was scheduled to return on Jan. 25, but now it is in recess until after the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, which run from Feb. 12 to 28.

    The decision to send Members of Parliament (MPs) home deprives the opposition parties of their ability to continue heavily-publicized committee hearings into the Afghan detainee controversy.

    Richard Colville, formerly the second-ranked Canadian diplomat in Kabul, testified last fall at a Canadian parliamentary committee that he warned Ottawa several times that detainees handed over by Canada had been abused.

    Colville claims at least three Afghans captured by Canadian troops ended up "at an NDS (National Directorate of Security) ' black site,'" a secret prison where torture is routinely used.

    Groups like Amnesty International believe Canada should have an independent inquiry into the allegations of abuse of detainees.

    Just days before leaving for their Christmas break, opposition MPs passed a resolution demanding the government hand over all of its documentation of the Afghan controversy, including uncensored versions of e-mails concerning the detainee issue that Colville sent to Ottawa during his term in Kabul.

    These kinds of resolutions are rare in Canada. The Harper administration had not given an answer to the demand for the documents, but opposition parties had warned they might force an election over the issue. Prorogation buys Harper time to reach a compromise or hope the opposition and media lose interest in the Afghan detainee issue.