The auditor general has been asked to review dealings with Canada Steamship Lines and the federal government, Prime Minister Paul Martin said Wednesday.

He also promised to post any future dealings between the company and the government on a website.

But he again dodged efforts by the opposition to personally confirm how much business was transacted between CSL and the government over a roughly 10-year period.

Grant Hill, acting leader of the Conservative Party, the official opposition, noted if Auditor General Sheila Fraser were to review the matter, the answer likely wouldn't come until fall.

A federal election call is expected this spring.

"That doesn't smell like transparency. That smells like something else."

Martin tried to pass the issue off as an attack on Fraser's integrity.

But the offering of future openness didn't stop opposition politicians from all parties to use the House of Commons' Question Period to continue to attack on the CSL issue for the second straight day.

However, the attacks appeared to be losing steam.

At one point, Hill, acting leader of the Conservative Party, yelled, "why doesn't he simply do that - telephone the boys?"

When he entered cabinet, Martin had CSL put into a blind trust.

Last summer, he gave the company to his sons. Hill was referring to them.

Jacques Saada, leader of the Government in the House of Commons, said to do so would violate conflict of interest rules.

Records released last week show the holding company received more than $160 million in government money between 1993 and 2002. That's about 1,000 times more than the $137,000 the Liberal government previously reported.

Martin has said he knew right away that the first figure offered last year was wrong.

"For 15 years, the Prime Minister has been telling Canadians for 15 years that he wasn't involved in the running of his own steamship company. Why did he later admit he had 12 meetings with the ethics counsellor?" asked Peter MacKay, the former Progressive Conservative leader.

"That number later rose to 33," he said, noting Martin seemed to know the $137,000 figure was wrong.

"If he was adhering to the blind trust rules, how did he know?"

Saada would only say the tables and other related information are on his website.

Any mistakes made were of an "administrative nature," he said.

CTV Newsnet's Mike Duffy noted Saada has become Martin's main defender on this issue in the House of Commons.

The opposition was following a standard tactic by concentrating on one issue where Martin could be vulnerable, he said.

But when the opposition gets into arcane bits like how contract numbers were rounded, "it's certainly going to put us to sleep in the journalism group, I don't know how it will play with the general public," he said.