A candidate for the Tory leadership is under fire after he made comments at a forum suggesting that the ultimate responsibility for children should be on the parents and family.
Doug Griffiths, the MLA for Battle River - Wainright, made the comments at a Calgary Conservative candidate forum on Sunday.
Griffiths was speaking in reference to a report that was released last week that highlighted a series of failures that led to the death of 14-month-old Elizabeth Velasquez.
Alberta's Children and Youth Services Minister Yvonne Fritz outlined the events that led up to Elizabeth's death in a press conference on Friday and said that the child had more injuries than previously thought.
Fritz also admitted that the government did something very wrong.
Elizabeth's death was initially determined to be accidental, but was upgraded to a homicide in May after an autopsy report said the child died of asphyxia and her death was non-accidental.
Griffiths told the forum that the parents and family bear the ultimate responsibility and that his parents would have kicked the door down to rescue him if he was in a similar situation.
On Monday, Griffiths insisted he wasn't being critical of Elizabeth's grandparents and he has apologized to them.
"Imagine being in their situation. This is horrible and then to think that somebody stood up and said they didn't do enough, I would be upset too and I wanted them to know that was not what my intention was and apologized for causing more grief," said Griffiths.
Bruce Anderson, Elizabeth's grandfather, says he would have been charged with kidnapping if he tried to take the little girl away.
"Now had I done that, chances are I would have been charged with kidnapping, and in our private meeting with Chief Hanson he said yeah, there's a real good chance that that's what would a happened," said Anderson.
Griffiths says his comments were taken out of context. "The comments were accurate, but the context was not what I had intended, and so I'm trying to clarify to people that I wasn't talking about baby Elizabeth, I was talking about the social workers and I wasn't suggesting that the grandparents didn't do enough."
Elizabeth's grandfather says Griffiths called him back on Monday morning. "Yeah he back pedaled of course. You know, that came out wrong. There's no person who could really mean what he said."
Bruce Anderson says the key is to get justice for his granddaughter and that is what he will be focusing on now.
So far no charges have been laid, but the girl's mother and boyfriend have not been ruled out as suspects in Elizabeth's murder.
