Tory MP denies calling NDP candidate ‘whore’
Some believe Tom Lukiwski used the word ‘horde’ in describing New Democrats
“At no point did I use any sort of profanity to describe the NDP . . . no such insult was ever used nor intended.” TOM LUKIWSKI CONSERVATIVE MP
A Conservative MP from Saskatchewan who apologized in the past for uttering a homophobic slur was on the hot seat again Thursday after a video surfaced that triggered a controversy over exactly what he said to a female NDP politician.
Tom Lukiwski was speaking to supporters after his government’s loss on election night Oct.19. He consoled backers, then began urging support for provincial MLA Greg Lawrence standing in the crowd of about 30 people.
What he said next is what is being hotly debated.
As he spoke to the gathering he described Karen Purdy, running for the NDP against Lawrence in the forthcoming Saskatchewan election, with one of two terms: “NDP whore” or “NDP horde.”
The MP issued a statement Thursday saying: “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.”
Others have said that Lukiwski maintains he used the word “horde.”
But for Purdy and Mickey Djuric, the reporter who took the video, Lukiwski said “whore.”
“Initially, I just couldn’t believe it,” Purdy told the Star. “I was astounded,” she said after listening to the tape.
The video was taken by Djuric, 26, a former Moose Jaw Times-Herald reporter, who resigned Thursday after being told earlier this week the paper would not run her story on the incident. She posted the video on her blog.
Djuric, a Toronto native who has been a journalist for four years and a reporter at the Times-Herald for 17 months, told the Star, “I heard him say ‘whore.’ ”
Lawrence, a member of the Saskatchewan Party seeking re-election in the provincial election in April, told the Regina Leader-Post he had spoken to Lukiwski’s chief of staff, who told him that “what Tom was trying to say was ‘NDP horde.’ ”
“Socialist horde” or “NDP horde” have been common terms for New Democrats among journalists and political staff.
Craig Slater, managing editor of the Times-Herald, told the Star his pap- er made an editorial decision after Lukiwski told its reporter that “he had said something different” — horde, not whore.
“We’re confident in the decision we made. We believe it was one (made) in fairness. (There) was the one element of doubt that was there.
“I’ve watched the video several times, too,” Slater added. “We replay this again, replay it again, replay it again. Nine times out of 10 I hear “whore.” And then there’s that one time, you know, maybe . . .
“It’s that slight element of doubt that made us pause.”
Slater said there was also a question of timing. The video was shot Oct. 19 and Djuric was on vacation for about two weeks after the election.
So the paper didn’t hear about the alleged comments until last week. He also said there were other media present that night, but no reports appeared to suggest derogatory remarks had been made.
As an MP, Lukiwski has made a reputation with his mouth — both for his filibusters when the Conservatives were in government and for a previous derogatory remark.
In 2008, a video shot in 1991 surfaced that showed Lukiwski, then a political organizer for the Progressive Conservative Party, saying: “There’s As and there’s Bs. The As are guys like me, the Bs are homosexual faggots with dirt on their fingernails that transmit diseases.”
Lukiwski told reporters in 2008 that 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.”
He later apologized in the Commons.