Moose Jaw reporter hears NDP 'whore,' Conservative MP swears he said 'horde'
Hordes of people are debating whether or not a Saskatchewan MP used a vulgar word to describe a provincial NDP candidate.
Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski says he said "NDP horde," not "NDP whore," during a speech on election night, Oct. 19. But Mickey Djuric, the journalist who recorded the interview, disagrees. You can watch a video of the speech here:
The MP for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre-Lanigan was thanking the crowd for their support, before turning to the subject of provincial politics.
He asked the audience to help Saskatchewan Party MLA Greg Lawrence get re-elected, saying, "He's too important of an MLA to let go down to an NDP" — and at this point Lukiwski says either "whore" or "horde" — "just because of a bad boundary."
The NDP has nominated Karen Purdy to run against Lawrence. Purdy says, "There is no doubt in my mind that he said 'whore.'"
When the Moose Jaw Herald Times refused to publish Djuric's recording of the speech, she resigned from the paper.
Djuric spoke to As It Happens host Carol Off. Here is an edited excerpt from their conversation:
Carol Off: Ms. Djuric, take us back to election night, what do you think that Tom Lukiwski actually said when you were recording his speech?
Mickey Djuric:
My opinion is he said "NDP whore." I was multitasking when I was recording him. In one hand, I was recording him, in the other, I was live-tweeting, and when he said that comment, I kind of paused and kind of gave him the benefit of the doubt, thinking that no way would he say that.
CO: How did others react in the room. Did others hear that?
MD: You know what, I was so focussed on what I was doing, I was really multitasking. You kind of can hear in the audio, if you really increase the volume, you hear a guy who was standing right next to me, he kind of did a little scoff. A little laugh, like he couldn't believe it happened. Even in the video footage, you can kind of see one of the women in the background kind of just looking over, her expression changes a little bit, as if she couldn't believe it.
CO: So why didn't you report it that night, if you thought that's what you had?
MD: Well, like I said earlier, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I couldn't believe that he would make this type of similar mistake twice. It was a busy night. I worked over 20 hours that day, deadline was fast approaching. I brushed it off, that comment, gave him the benefit of the doubt, thought that no way would he say this. It wasn't until I came back from vacation that I was like, "Hey, you know what, I never put the victory speech online." Before I loaded it up, I gave it one quick listen, and that's when I realized, he said "NDP whore."
My opinion is he said "NDP whore."- Mickey Djudic
CO: What did Tom Luwiski say when you told him that this is what you had recorded?
MD: Two conversations took place. The first one, he was shocked. He said, "What?" He said he would never say something like that. I asked him if he refers to women as whores. He said no, he doesn't use that language. He said anyone who has followed his political career would know he didn't speak that way. He said, if he did say it, he apologizes, but we made an editorial decision that we weren't going to show the video to anyone. He said that it was hard for him to make a comment without seeing the video. The interview was just going in circles, so I hung up the phone.
Four minutes later he called me back, and said, "Hey, I talked to my chief of staff and a couple of people who were in that room and he said I said 'hordes' - plural." And I said, "Hordes?" I know Tom to be a very well-spoken guy. I think that's his gift as a politician . . . I said, "But 'hordes' doesn't make sense in that context," and he said, "Hordes makes perfect sense to me," and I questioned him more on that. He ended up hanging up the phone on me.
CO: And now you've resigned. Why?
MD: I felt honestly, by not releasing the video, and being told to not talk about it or gossip about it, that that was going against my ethics and my beliefs. This is something that occurred in Moose Jaw's backyard. These are people who have voted for this guy. They need to decide what this guy said. They have the right to form an opinion. That's what I said to my bosses earlier on. I said, "We're hearing 'whore,' but the public's going to be the jury on this issue." They have the right to form that opinion. They need to see this video. He made these remarks in public. It wasn't in a basement, in a bar or a restaurant and I overheard it. He did this in a public setting. This was a public speech. I felt that the citizens of Moose Jaw had every right to see this video.
Lukiwski has released the following statement: "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."
Thursday, the Conservative's interim leader Rona Ambrose said she'd accepted his explanation.