Trudeau accepts watchdog’s SNC-Lavalin report, takes responsibility, but disagrees with findings

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he is accepting the findings of the ethics commissioner’s report on the SNC-Lavalin affair and takes responsibility “for everything that happened.”

But he says he disagrees with a number of Mario Dion’s conclusions, including any suggestion that he shouldn’t have had any contact with his attorney general on the criminal prosecution facing the Montreal engineering firm.

In his report, Dion found Trudeau violated the Conflict of Interest Act by improperly pressuring former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to halt the criminal proceeding.

Trudeau has denied for months that either he or anyone in his office acted improperly, but says he was simply acting in the best interests of Canadians – although he acknowledges that he and others made mistakes.

Trudeau told a news conference in Niagara-on-the-Lake: “What happened over the past year shouldn’t have happened. I take responsibility for it. We need to make sure that my government or any government going forward isn’t in that position again.”

Wilson-Raybould says she was improperly pressured to step in and allow the Quebec engineering firm to negotiate an agreement to avoid criminal penalties for bribery in relation to its overseas operations.

In his report, which comes just weeks before the start of a federal election campaign, Dion sides entirely with Wilson-Raybould.