A political bombshell was dropped yesterday when the ethics commissioner found Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had violated the Conflict of Interest Act for trying to influence former Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould during the SNC Lavalin scandal.
Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party Lisa Raitt was on AM1150's Early Edition this morning.
She told host Phil Johnson, it is a sad day for Canada.
“We now know that there is illegal lobbying involved in this, a deliberate attempt to lie to parliamentarians, a deliberate attempt to cover up and stop inquiries in parliament and is a deliberate attempt to top the ethics commissioner from getting the information they want,” said Raitt.
According to Raitt, the Liberal Party will have a long term negative effect and impact on prosperity in Canada.
The situation is as serious as it gets and the conservative opposition says the RCMP has grounds to pursue the Prime Minister.
“This is going to be on an international level and the OECD is going to be looking at it as well, they already said they were. This is going to continue as the fall goes along. There’s a lot more trouble ahead for this government than they anticipate that they think they can get around, with respect to claiming it was just about jobs.”
Raitt was angered by Trudeau’s response to the report yesterday, claiming he was flippant about the gravity of his actions.
Trudeau originally denied the scandal altogether earlier this year.
But at a news conference yesterday, PM Justin Trudeau took responsibility for his involvement but said he couldn't apologize for what he calls 'standing up for jobs.'
Now, the Conservative Party is stepping up just weeks before the October election.
Raitt told AM1150's Early Edition, the Conservative party will not continually revisit this issue in their election campaign and will instead be talking about how Kelowna residents can get ahead.
“We're going to be talking about the climate and how we believe that we're going to solve these issues by investing in the technology that's needed and making businesses invest in technology that's needed and get going in terms of being the world leaders that we can be in this field.”
She added that, over time, the Conservative Party has developed a platform that Canadians can believe in and look to for opportunity.