Background
His father immigrated from the Ukraine to Pennsylvania where he worked as a miner and where Michael was born and spent his first ten years.
His father immigrated from the Ukraine to Pennsylvania where he worked as a miner and where Michael was born and spent his first ten years.
Michael Luchkovich graduated high school in Winnipeg, Manitoba and then studied at the University of Calgary where he obtained a political science degree and at the Calgary Normal School where he earned his qualifications as a teacher.
The family then moved to Canada where Michael"s father operated a hotel. Luchkovich ran as a United Farmers of Alberta candidate and was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1926 Canadian federal election. His election made him the first person of Ukrainian descent to be elected to Federal Parliament and he became a national spokesman for Canada"s 200,000 Ukrainians, speaking against discrimination.
He was defeated by Social Cr candidate William Hayhurst in the 1935 Canadian federal election.
He was a founding member of the Company-operative Commonwealth Federation and it was as a standard-bearer of the new party that he was defeated in the 1935 election.
He served as a Canada"s first Member of Parliament of Ukrainian origin from 1926 to 1935.