Tom Lukiwski, Pre- and Post-Crisis

A couple of days ago, few if any Canadians outside of Saskatchewan had any idea who Tom Lukiwski is. Bet he misses those days!

It's rare in our day and age to see important or influencial people get themselves into trouble with video footage that predates YouTube, isn't it? Of course, it didn't stay offline for long; you can see the snippet clip that sparked the media frenzy here, with a sarcastic slideshow on either end of the clip because this is the internet, or go here to watch the full twenty-five minutes (!) of footage.

(Dirt under their fingern... the hell does that even mean?)

There are people trying to downplay the video by pointing out that the remarks in question were made seventeen years ago, but come on now -- seventeen years ago means he was fourty years old at the time, and fourty is a hell of an age to not know better by.

Now, I'd happened to come across my good drawing pencils in the basement the other day -- so that's where they were! -- and when you see a man making that big a mental error while wearing that brazen a moustache, well, you can't not draw it:



Ha ha, man, that moustache. I can't possibly do that thing justice.

The opposition is calling for Lukiwski's head, of course -- both because that's what you'd expect them to do given the circumstances and because it worked last time. And the Conservatives are insisting that they have no intention of jettisoning or punishing him, likely because reducing their seat count in their minority government is not on their to-do list. So we the audience will probably be hearing about this one for a while yet, which I'm sure is just what we were all looking forward to.

(And Brad Wall, now the Premier of Saskatchewan, is on the same videotape mocking then-Premier Roy Romanow with what is ostensibly a Ukrainian accent; Romanow is still a pretty well-respected dude, and Saskatchewan has a few Ukrainians in it, so you can imagine how the next provincial election over there is going to be nothing but good times.)

I couldn't help but laugh a little at a quick tidbit from this coverage:

"Lukiwski was first elected in 2004. The previous MP for that riding, Larry Spencer, was suspended from the Canadian Alliance caucus after he told a reporter he would support a law to outlaw homosexuality.

When he ran for office, Lukiwski criticized Spencer for those remarks."

Man, that poor riding! Sorry, Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre! Better luck next time!

In conclusion, if you are in politics you should probably not get drunk and make fun of homosexuals in front of a video camera. Write this down somewhere! It's probably a good lesson to remember.