Conservative MP Rob Anders: Thomas Mulcair Hastened Jack Layton’s Death

Jack Layton

Conservative MP Rob Anders is “a politician who isn’t afraid to speak his mind”. Supposedly. He once called South African anti-apartheid icon, Nelson Mandela, a “terrorist“.  But this time, the Calgary West MP went too far. During an interview with iPolitics’ Laura Stone, Anders suggested that NDP Leader, Thomas Mulcair, helped push Jack Layton into an early grave.

This is what Anders said:

I actually think one of the great stories that was missed by journalists was that Mr. Mulcair, with his arm twisted behind the scenes, helped to hasten Jack Layton’s death.

 

It was very clear to me watching the two of those gentlemen in the front benches, that Jack Layton was ill and that Mr. Mulcair was making it quite obvious that if Jack wasn’t well enough to fight the campaign and fight the election that he should step aside, and that because of that, Mr. Layton put his life at risk to go into the national election, and fight it, and did obviously an amazing job considering his state of health, and that he did that partly because of the arm-twisting behind the scenes by Mulcair and then subsequently died.

Of course, as politicians always do, Anders has apologized for the insult. And Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office has distanced itself from the comments:

To be clear, Mr. Anders’ comments regarding Jack Layton in no way represent the views of @pmharper or the Government.

— Andrew MacDougall (@PMO_MacDougall) October 1, 2012

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