GLORIA GALLOWAY, BRODIE FENLON and JENNIFER MACMILLAN
OTTAWA AND TORONTO — Globe and Mail Update and Canadian Press Published on Thursday, Apr. 03, 2008 8:26PM EDT Last updated on Monday, Mar. 30, 2009 3:24PM EDT
Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski apologized Thursday after the Saskatchewan NDP released a 16-year-old videotape featuring him and a young Brad Wall that contains sexist, racist and homophobic comments.
The video was taped in 1991, inside the Progressive Conservative campaign headquarters of Grant Devine who was making an unsuccessful bid for re-election as Saskatchewan premier. It was released by the Saskatchewan NDP Thursday, after it was found in an office.
It features several shots of a young staff clowning around. In it Mr. Lukiwski tells the camera: “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.”
The video also features several shots of a young Mr. Wall.
In a feigned Ukrainian accent, he says of then NDP leader Roy Romanow, a son of Ukrainian immigrants, he's “got his head up his ass. I don't even know how he walks upright with his head so far up his ass.”
Mr. Lukiwski, 57, quickly apologized for the remarks, which he said don't represent his true views.
“I am truly, truly sorry. I'm ashamed [of] the comments. If I could take those comments back, I would. I would give anything in the world to take those comments back,” he said.
“I have no prejudice against gay people whatsoever. Those comments do not reflect the type of person I am.”
Mr. Wall, who is now Saskatchewan premier, also expressed his regret Thursday.
“It just never was then, and neither would it ever be, in any way an attempt to slight any group,” said Mr. Wall.
“He will be speaking with Mr. Romanow,” Deputy Premier Ken Krawetz said of Mr. Wall. “Those comments were inappropriate even though they were meant in a fooling-around fashion.”
Mr. Krawetz, who is of Ukrainian descent, noted that Mr. Wall's accent wasn't even that good. He attributed the episode to Mr. Wall's immaturity at the time.
The New Democrats said they found the tape in a camera case when they moved into Opposition offices after Mr. Wall's Saskatchewan Party won last fall's provincial election.
Mr. Lukiwski was a Tory organizer at the time the tape was made and Mr. Wall was a ministerial aide.
“Why would you videotape this, why would you keep it and why would you leave it behind?” Saskatchewan NDP deputy leader Pat Atkinson said at the press conference where the tape was released.
“We decided that given Mr. Lukiwski's comments – he's a member of Parliament representing the people of our province in Ottawa – that the comments were so troubling and so disturbing that people needed to know what he had said,” she said.
Thursday in the House of Commons NDP MP Bill Siksay repeated some of the quotes from Mr. Lukiwski, who is Parliamentary Secretary for Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan.
“Mr. Lukiwski's comments on this tape are absolutely shocking,” said Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale in a statement. “The Prime Minister must act responsibly and immediately dismiss this man from his duties as a Parliamentary Secretary and from the Conservative Party caucus.”
Mr. Van Loan dampened any notion of that kind of repercussion.
“Obviously what Mr. Lukiwski said was inappropriate and unacceptable even in a social context like that and that distance of time ago,” said Mr. Van Loan. “There is no room for those kinds of intolerant remarks in the country.”
But Mr. Lukiwski made an unequivocal apology and he did so quickly, so the matter is now closed, said Mr. Van Loan. “We accepted that apology as sincere and genuine and are satisfied that the comments in question don't reflect his beliefs.”
Mr. Romanow was flying to Ottawa on Thursday and was not immediately available for comment.
Mr. Lukiwski was a long-time insider in the provincial Conservative Party and the Saskatchewan Party before his election in 2004 in the riding of Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre. He won the seat by 122 votes and was re-elected in 2006 with 42 per cent of the vote.
The incumbent, Larry Spencer, was a member of the Canadian Alliance caucus but was dropped by the party after he told a reporter in 2003 that homosexuality should be outlawed and that a conspiracy is responsible for the successes of the gay rights movement.
When the new Conservative party was formed by the merger of the Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties, Mr. Spencer was banned from running for the Tories. The party justified its decision by saying people across the country don't accept intolerance.
Mr. Spencer ran as an Independent and garnered less than five per cent of the vote.
Mr. Wall, 42, was elected premier of Saskatchewan last fall but has been involved in politics for more than two decades. He first served as a ministerial assistant in the final years of Mr. Devine's Progressive Conservative government in Saskatchewan.
In 1991, Mr. Wall ran for the Conservative nomination in his hometown of Swift Current and was defeated. He later worked as Swift Current's director of business development before successfully running for the Saskatchewan Party in 1999. He became leader of the party in 2004.
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