Central Nova had been considered a safe Progressive Conservative riding, but its popular MP, Elmer MacKay, did not run for reelection in 1993.
Skoke was elected in the gigantic Liberal landslide of that year as the party swept Nova Scotia and won all but one seat in the Atlantic provinces.
She was one of the more socially conservative members of the Liberal caucus, drawing great controversy for her remarks on homosexuality in 1995, calling it "unnatural and immoral.
[5][6] In 1998, she unsuccessfully attempted to win a seat in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly by running against John Hamm in Pictou Centre during the provincial election.
[7][8] In the 1980s, she was one of six people charged and convicted for disturbing an act of solemnity during a service of religious worship after she insisted on kneeling for communion at her Catholic church.