The sound and the fury of election
Speech puts Moose Jaw-area MP at the centre of a national debate
A Moose Jaw-area MP is at the centre of a national “Did he or didn’t he?” debate after a video surfaced in which Tom Lukiwski utters what some say is a reference to a provincial NDP candidate as an “NDP whore.”
The video is the Moose Jaw-Lake Centre-Lanigan MP’s victory speech, filmed in a beige room of supporters after the Oct. 19 federal election. It was captured by former Moose Jaw Times-Herald journalist Mickey Djuric, who has since resigned.
Lukiwski talks of the “bittersweet evening” and the NDP vote “going left, to the Liberals.” He then turns to the upcoming provincial election, telling people how important it is for Moose Jaw Wakamow’s Saskatchewan Party MLA, Greg Lawrence, to be re-elected.
“This is a very important election, provincially. We’ve got to get Greg back elected; he’s too important of an MLA to let go down to an NDP whore just because of a bad boundary,” he appears to say in the video.
On Twitter, the debate quickly turned to whether Lukiwski said “whore” or “horde” and whether or not he was referring to the NDP’s candidate in the Wakamow riding, Karen Purdy.
Lukiwski didn’t return calls for an interview Thursday, but in a three-sentence statement, insisted “at no point did I use any sort of profanity to describe the NDP. I have reached out to the NDP candidate, Ms. Purdy, to assure her that no such insult was ever used nor intended.”
Asked about the video Thursday morning, Lawrence — to whom Lukiwski was extending the hand of political friendship — said the MP’s chief of staff told him “what Tom was trying to say, was ‘horde.’”
Still, he admitted, “what I hear is what I think is a very inappropriate word.”
“I’m a parliamentarian, so I don’t use language like that, and I don’t expect Tom would either,” Lawrence told the Regina Leader-Post.
“What’s disappointing is when anybody uses derogatory terms like that, in any context, especially toward somebody else … that’s running.”
Lawrence said he “of course” would be reaching out to Purdy, who told reporters in Moose Jaw she was “aghast” when she saw the video.
“I was disappointed in Mr. Lukiwski. I was disappointed that a member of Parliament would say something like this,” Purdy said.
Purdy said she has “no doubt” that Lukiwski said “whore” as opposed to “horde” and wants an apology from Lukiwski — and his resignation.
“I’m not confident that he can represent us adequately,” Purdy said. “I think we all deserve an apology.”
Premier Brad Wall would not weigh in on whether Lukiwski should resign, but said, “If he said what is reported he said — and he meant it, he didn’t drop aD — … it’s unacceptable.”
But provincial NDP Leader Cam Broten said “whore” is “sure what it sounded like to me on the video.” In response, he also called for Lukiwski’s resignation and wrote to interim leader of the federal Conservative Party, Rona Ambrose, asking she remove Lukiwski from caucus.
“These types of comments are so unacceptable, are so appalling, and are so disgusting,” Broten told reporters.
“I know what I heard in that video.
“When we look at (Lukiwski’s) track record, when you have someone who, in the same context, surrounded by party faithful and supporters, has said some pretty outrageous things in that sort of party atmosphere … to me it doesn’t make sense that you’d be calling one person a horde. I don’t buy it. I simply don’t buy it.”
But Ambrose accepted Lukiwski’s explanation.
In a statement posted to the Conservative Party website, she said she’d “spoken with Tom Lukiwski in regards to the comments some are attributing to him which appeared on the Internet earlier today.”
“I have seen the video in question and it is very difficult to determine what was said. Mr. Lukiwski strongly denies that he used the word in question. He has also reached out to the NDP candidate in order to assure her that no such insult was ever used or intended.
“Let me be clear. If derogatory language had been used, any member of Caucus would have already been removed.
“I have accepted Mr. Lukiwski’s explanation in regards to these comments.”
This is not the first time Lukiwski has found himself in hot water over comments caught on camera. In 2008, a video shot in 1991 surfaced that showed Lukiwski, then a political organizer for the provincial Progressive Conservative Party, addressing an unknown camera operator saying, “There’s A’s and there’s B’s. The A’s are guys like me, the B’s are homosexual faggots with dirt on their fingernails that transmit diseases.”
Lukiwski, the MP for Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre before boundary changes took effect this year, told reporters in 2008 he was “truly, truly sorry.
“I’m ashamed for the comments. If I could take those comments back I would … They do not reflect the type of person that I am.”
Lukiwski later apologized in the House of Commons for the remark.