Shari Lukens, a former Colwood councillor, will represent the Conservative Party of Canada in the new riding of Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke in the upcoming federal election.
Lukens, raised in Hardisty, Alta., was acclaimed as the Conservative candidate after her competitor for the nomination, David Busch, stepped aside.
On Thursday, Lukens, a former broadcaster and skating coach, said she has wanted to be involved in federal politics for a long time, and that her experience and passion for municipal politics “sets me up for success.”
It was her mother’s cancer diagnosis in August that led Lukens to decide against running for a second term on Colwood council. In late December, when her mother’s prognosis was bright, it was suggested Lukens run federally.
“I haven’t had this kind of fire in my belly since before my husband was killed in 2006,” Lukens said.
Her husband died in a helicopter crash about a year after the couple moved to the Cowichan Valley. Following his death, Lukens moved to the West Shore. In 2011, she was elected to Colwood council, topping the polls.
Before entering politics, Lukens was a competitive figure skater, coach and reporter.
As a figure skater, Lukens trained with the likes of Olympian Brian Orser. Her promising competitive career ended when she was struck by a drunk driver at age 17. Instead, she launched what would become a 23-year career as a figure and power skating coach.
In the 1990s, she retrained and became a reporter and broadcaster, but after meeting her husband while filming a documentary, she pulled up stakes and moved to Vancouver, where she worked with Telus for 11 years.
The boundaries of the new Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke riding, which includes about 113,000 people in Esquimalt, Colwood, Metchosin, View Royal, Sooke and parts of Saanich, are similar to those of the current Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca riding.
The riding is represented by the NDP’s Randall Garrison, who was elected in 2011 after longtime MP Keith Martin retired.
Martin was first elected to represent the federal riding in 1993, when he knocked off former B.C. NDP premier Dave Barrett. It was the first of six election victories for Martin, who initially represented the Reform party, then the Canadian Alliance and eventually the Liberal party.
Garrison is his party’s candidate in the Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke riding in the Oct. 19 election.
He is the Opposition critic for public safety and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and transsexual issues. He is a former criminologist and college instructor.
Frances Litman is the Green party candidate.
Litman, an Esquimalt resident for more than two decades, owns a small business as a professional photographer and is managing director of the Creatively United for the Planet society’s Earth Week festival. She worked at the Times Colonist for more than a decade.
The Liberal nomination vote is set for March 20 at Archie Browning Sports Centre in Esquimalt.
The race is between Luke Krayenhoff, who is president of Langham Court Theatre and active in the Esquimalt Legion, and David Merner, a lawyer with the B.C. Ministry of Justice and former president of the B.C. arm of the Liberal Party of Canada.
