Outspoken Alberta Conservative MP Rob Anders has apologized for suggesting NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair hastened Jack Layton’s death.

“My comments in iPolitics with respect to Mr. Mulcair and Mr. Layton were insensitive and inconsiderate. I apologize to Mr. Mulcair and to Mr. Layton’s family,” Anders said in a statement released Monday.

New Democrat MP Olivia Chow, who was married to Layton, said she was upset by the comments but accepted the apology.

“I appreciate Mr. Anders’ concern (for) Jack’s health and his death. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to make Jack live longer, but to all conspiracy theorists, cancer is unpredictable, it’s vicious and it kills. Let’s put aside the theories and let’s work toward a cure for cancer,” Chow (Trinity–Spadina) said outside the Commons before the start of question period on Monday.

“Unity and loyalty are in the DNA of New Democrats and like all the other NDP members of Parliament, Tom Mulcair loved Jack. We would rather put all our energy in fighting for a better world, a better Canada and not stab each other in the back. I do accept Rob Anders’ apology,” Chow said.

NDP MP Peter Stoffer (Sackville–Eastern Shore) had choice words for Anders when he learned of the remarks shortly before Chow emerged to make her statement.

“If I was Mr. Harper, he would be gone, out of the Conservative Party in a heartbeat. That kind of attitude, that kind of comment, that’s insane. That is a disgrace to not only Mr. Mulcair but to the legacy of Mr. Layton. Think about how Olivia Chow must feel. That is just absolutely cold-hearted … He should be removed from Parliament altogether,” Stoffer said.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office scrambled earlier to distance itself from Anders’ highly controversial comments in an interview with iPolitics, an online newspaper.

“Mr. Anders’ comments regarding Jack Layton in no way represent the views of Prime Minister Harper or the government,” Harper’s director of communications Andrew MacDougall said on Twitter early Monday.

In a story published Monday, the Calgary West MP told iPolitics that Mulcair pushed Layton into campaigning in the 2011 election when he was fighting cancer. The illness later took Layton’s life.

“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,” Anders told iPolitics.

“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.”

Anders went on: “He would have taken more heed of his health. He might not have rushed into that election campaign with somebody with a knife in his back.”

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Anders is no stranger to controversy. Among other things, he called Nelson Mandela a terrorist, has fallen fast asleep in the House of Commons and was tossed from a veteran’s affairs committee for his apparent lack of respect for veterans.

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