Opposition MPs renewed their calls for the defence minister's resignation on Tuesday, questioning how much Conservatives knew about allegations of prisoner abuse in Afghanistan.
Liberal Deputy Leader Michael Ignatieff accused the Conservatives of denying any specific knowledge of the allegations until Monday.
"The prime minister and the ministers have insisted in their denials that the government had any specific knowledge about allegations of torture," he said.
"Then yesterday, the minister of public safety admitted that the government did know about specific allegations of torture and that Corrections Canada officers in Afghanistan had told him last week, so we have a startling new admission."
NDP Leader Jack Layton took the demands further, not only asking that Gordon O'Connor be removed but also Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay and Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day.
"The minister of defence has been caught repeatedly misleading this House on this whole affair with the transfers," said Layton.
"The minister of foreign affairs has so many positions on this that it is impossible to know where he stands despite the warnings from Human Rights Watch and his own department.
"Now we have the minister of public safety who tells us that there are no reports of torture, and then turns around a couple of hours later and tell us that there are. This whole fiasco has reached the point where the prime minister has to take some action. Why doesn't he shuffle the whole bunch out of there and put some competence in his cabinet?"
But Prime Minister Stephen Harper shot back that it was opposition MPs who had their facts wrong.
He said Day acknowledged that Canadian officials in Afghanistan had heard allegations of prisoner abuse, but also had found no evidence to support those claims.
"The deputy (Liberal) leader is saying there are some new allegations here," said Harper. "But I'm reading quotes from last week where the minister of public safety said exactly this: 'Canadian Corrections officials had been in prisons in Afghanistan and have heard some of these allegations, but did not see the evidence.' It's right on the record April 26, 2007."
Last week, The Globe and Mail reported that Afghan prisoners, after being handed over to local authorities, are routinely beaten, whipped, starved, frozen, choked and interrogated by electric shock in Kandahar jails.
The newspaper report chronicled claims of abuse by Afghan authorities after more than 30 face-to-face interviews with men recently captured in Kandahar province.
