The Moose Jaw Express/MooseJawToday.com have sent out a questionnaire to each of the candidates in the Moose Jaw — Lake Centre — Lanigan riding. We will be publishing these results in order they were received.
Name: Tom Lukiwski
Age: 68
Running for: Conservative Party of Canada
Profession: Member of Parliament (up until election).
Currently residing in (city or neighbourhood): Regina Beach
Previous political experience:
Before running for elected office, I served as the Executive Director of the former Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan and General Manager of the Saskatchewan Party.
For the past 15 years, it has been my privilege to serve the people of this area, first as the Member of Parliament for Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre and, for the past four years as the Member for the new riding of Moose Jaw-Lake Centre-Lanigan.
During my time in Ottawa, I have served as the Chair of the Saskatchewan Conservative Caucus and have sat on many Parliamentary Committees including the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy, and Ethics. In 2006, I became the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and played an active role on the Procedure and House Affairs Committee.
Who is your political hero?
John Diefenbaker. I think any Saskatchewan conservative politician has to be inspired by the first (but hopefully not the only) prime minister from Saskatchewan. His accomplishments remain some of the proudest parts of the Conservative Party’s and Saskatchewan’s political legacy, including the Bill of Rights and extending voting rights to First Nations people.
What inspired you to enter the election race?
My motivation in this campaign is the same as in my first campaign: I want to help people. I have built up a network of connections both here in Saskatchewan and in Ottawa that give me the ability and the privilege to serve my constituents in their dealings with the federal government. That’s a very gratifying feeling and there’s no way to put a price tag on that sort of emotional reward.
What’s the number one local issue at the federal level?
Infrastructure. Moose Jaw and the rural areas of the riding need a massive injection of infrastructure support to maintain vital service, but the Liberals have neglected this area, just as they’ve neglected all of Western Canada.
Beyond Moose Jaw, what’s the number one issue facing Canada?
This election all comes down to Justin Trudeau’s credibility and the way that has fuelled Westerners’ distrust of and alienation from Ottawa. Trudeau said he would balance the budget but deficits are spiralling out of control. He promised open and transparent government but then tried to cut a backroom deal to save SNC-Lavalin from criminal prosecution. He said he’d cut taxes but then he increased taxes on 80 per cent of the middle-class and imposed the carbon tax. He said he’d build pipelines but instead passed legislation that blocks them. And the list goes on.
Is there an issue that people are focusing too much?
I think all of us in politics wish there was less of the anti-personal scandalmongering. There’s one minor party in this election that goes around saying “Our candidates aren’t politicians. They’re real people.” But, you know, all politicians are real people. We have the same flaws as every other human being on the planet. If we started disqualifying people from office for being human, we wouldn’t be able to run a democracy.
At the start of this campaign, the Liberal war room had a strategy to roll out an anti-personal attack on opponents every day. Then they learned that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. I hope that serves to cool the temperature a bit, at least for this campaign.
Is there an issue that doesn’t get enough attention?
I don’t think the national campaign is paying enough attention to Western alienation. To me, this is one of the most important elections in a generation. I’ve been around politics in Saskatchewan a long time but I’ve never heard the level of discontent I’ve heard lately. People feel as though their country has abandoned them. We need to have a serious change in direction in Ottawa to address that.
Why did you choose to run for your particular party?
I think it all comes down to the principle of responsibility in many senses. First and foremost, the government needs to show fiscal responsibility. The Liberals and NDP obviously have no respect for this. People individually need to be responsible for their own life choices, such as criminal and terrorist acts. Here again, we have so often seen the parties of the left adopt a “blame the victim” attitude and go soft on criminals and terrorists. Taxpayers must also be allowed to have responsibility for how to spend their hard-earned money, instead of having a Big Brother tax-and-spend government decide how to spend their earnings for them. There are many other examples I could cite but it all comes down to the fact that people should be responsible for their own lives and governments should be held responsible and accountable for how they spend taxpayers’ money.
In terms of broad policies that support that principle, I believe in smaller government, individual responsibility, lower taxes and fiscal responsibility.
What is the biggest issue facing your party’s chance at success?
I worry that the voters may have short memories. There has been such a long litany of failures from Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government – his two ethics violations, the humiliating India trip, the SNC-Lavalin affair, the payout to Omar Khadr, the anti-pipeline bills, the carbon tax, and so on and so on. But as the saying goes, two weeks is a lifetime in politics. Some people are already treating SNC-Lavalin as “ancient history.” Our job in this campaign will be to remind Canadians of all the reasons they’ve had to feel frustrated and betrayed by Justin Trudeau.
How will you engage and encourage young voters to participate in this election?
I would tell young voters to take a look across the ocean, at Hong Kong, where people their age are battling in the streets to fight for democracy and to safeguard the freedoms they have from being taken away. Our democracy is also under threat – it is under threat from neglect and apathy. It is the duty of young people in Canada to rise up against that threat just like their peers in Hong Kong.
What is your party’s leader’s biggest flaw?
This is going to sound like one of those “humble-brag” comments but sometimes I think Andrew Scheer is just too nice. People attack him, they even tell outright lies about him, but he always turns the other cheek and takes the high road. Sometimes, the competitive spirit in me wishes that he would hit back a little harder. On the other hand, I find his approach refreshing and it might be just what society needs in these times of division and acrimony.
Once elected, your job is to represent your entire riding. How do you plan on representing individuals who didn’t vote for you?
When I was first elected in 2004, I won by a margin of 122 votes. Only one-third of the voters had supported me. What I learned from that was that, even though I had won the election, I still had a long way to go to win the trust of people in the constituency. So, ever since, I have run my office on the basis of being politically colour blind and just focusing on the people, on the real human problems that we all face. That approach has paid off since my percentage of the popular vote has grown election after election so that, in 2015, I earned the support of over 55 per cent of the voters.
What informs your political stance? What books, publications, relationships or experiences?
I enjoy reading the National Post. It has a good blend of domestic and international news and its columnists are intelligent, witty, insightful and very balanced in their reporting. Reading the newspaper has fallen a bit out of fashion these days but I still find that it is a good way to set up my day with useful information and different perspectives.
What local project or service would you advocate for more federal spending?
I’m very concerned about the status of SaskPower’s proposed natural gas plant in Moose Jaw. Both the construction and operation of the plant will create much needed jobs and economic activity for our area. But the project is on hold now because the federal government released new gas regulations requiring zero emissions by 2030 to avoid carbon taxes. This has thrown the project in turmoil. If I am elected, I will advocate to have this project grandfathered under the previous regulations so that we can get it moving as quickly as possible.
What is something people don’t know about you?
I represented Saskatchewan three times at the Canadian Amateur Golf Championships. Back in the day, my handicap would have been about a one or two. These days, my handicap is a four … my golf handicap that is. My life handicap is that I have a bad hip.
