Ethics commissioner Mario Dion has declared that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau broke Canada’s conflict of interest law in his handling of the SNC-Lavalin affair. Local MP David Anderson says this is something Canadians have known to be true since the beginning of the controversy.

The announcement came yesterday in the conclusion of Dion's investigation of Trudeau's actions towards former Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould. Wilson-Raybould accused Trudeau of attempting to pressure her to intervene in an ongoing criminal case against engineering firm SNC-Lavalin.

Trudeau has taken responsibility for his actions but refuses to apologize for them, saying that "I'm not going to apologize for standing up for Canadians jobs because that's my job."

Member of Parliament for Cypress Hill-Grasslands David Anderson says Trudeau's comment is "a ridiculous assertion."

"That's not a good reason to interfere with the justice department and the justice minister. We all stand up for jobs, we all believe in jobs, and we believe in honest jobs. Nobody is opposing jobs because they suggest that the Prime Minister shouldn't be interfering with his cabinet"

In the 2015 election, Trudeau ran on a policy of an "Open and Transparent Government." Anderson however, says that much of the Prime Minister's rhetoric following the ethics commissioner's report has shown a distinct lack of transparency.

"He made these promises in 2015 that he was going to be accountable and ethical and he's been anything but. It's no surprise to me that he's trying to use language here to really confuse people and mislead them."

While there have been various instances throughout Canada's history where government officials breached the Conflict of Interest Act, Anderson believes there has never been one to this degree of severity.

"This is one of the biggest things to happen in decades in Canada. Things that have happened in the past have not been of this scale at all. This is not a minor thing when the Prime Minister of a country decides that he doesn't want to pay attention to the code of conduct for him and his cabinet." 

Anderson hopes that Canadians will keep Trudeau accountable in the next few months leading up to the 2019 federal election. 

"People are going to have to decide what kind of leadership they want in this country. Trudeau will have more ethical lapses in the future is he's allowed to stay in his position, and Canadians deserve more than that."