BEYAK WARNS OF DANGERS TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH
Senator removed from committee over comments
OTTAWA • Conservative Senator Lynn Beyak says her party’s decision to sanction her for comments about Canada’s residential school history amounts to a threat to freedom of speech.
In a statement released Thursday, Beyak — who was removed Wednesday from the Senate committee on Aboriginal Peoples — says political correctness is “stifling opinion and thoughtful conversation.”
She also says a silent majority of Canadians agree with what she said — that there were “good deeds” and other positive elements that emerged from the country’s residential school system.
“For me to lose my position on the Aboriginal Peoples Committee for complimenting the work of nurses, teachers, foster families and legions of other decent, caring Canadians — along with highlighting inspiring stories spoken by aboriginal people themselves — is a serious threat to freedom of speech,” Beyak writes.
“Too often, on a broad range of issues, a vocal minority cries foul and offence whenever a point of view is raised that does not align with their own.
“Meanwhile, the silent majority, who are contributing to this country by working, building and selling things, taking care of their parents and children, are left thinking they are alone.”
Free speech does not apply to “people that celebrate genocide,” NDP indigenous affairs critic Romeo Saganash, a residential school survivor, said outside the House of Commons on Thursday.
Beyak set off a firestorm last month in a speech in the Senate focused on highlighting the need to track federal spending on indigenous issues.
“I speak partly for the record, but mostly in memory of the kindly and well-intentioned men and women and their descendants — perhaps some of us here in this chamber — whose remarkable works, good deeds and historical tales in the residential schools go unacknowledged for the most part and are overshadowed by negative reports,” she said at the time.
“Mistakes were made at residential schools — in many instances, horrible mistakes that overshadowed some good things that also happened at those schools.”
The comments ignited comment from inside and outside the upper chamber that divided her own caucus, which ultimately decided to remove her from the Senate committee on Aboriginal Peoples.
Late Wednesday, interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose removed Beyak from the committee, but stopped short of kicking her out of caucus.
Jake Enwright, a spokesperson for Ambrose, said, “Ms. Ambrose has been clear that Sen. Beyak’s views do not reflect the Conservative party’s position on residential schools.”
The Conservatives were in power in 2008 when the federal government delivered an abject apology in the House of Commons to families and survivors, a fact not lost on Enwright.
“It was prime minister Stephen Harper who made an historic apology to the victims of residential schools and launched the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” he said.
In her statement Thursday, Beyak says she believes the experience has revealed to her how difficult it is to have a “balanced, truthful discussion about all issues affecting Canadians.”