Help remove Beyak from Senate, MP tells Trudeau
OTTAWA — One of Sen. Lynn Beyak’s harshest critics, unsatisfied with the decision to kick her out of the Conservative caucus, wants Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to mount an effort to deal with her “fundamental unfitness” to serve in the upper chamber.
New Democrat MP Charlie Angus has written to Trudeau to ask that he reach out to the independent and Liberal members of the Senate, among others, to convince them to “use the tools of the Senate” to have her removed, ending what he calls an “egregious abuse of public office.”
Beyak was booted out of the Tory caucus late Thursday by Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer amid media reports about letters of support she had posted on her personal Senate website.
The letters expressed support for Beyak after she triggered an uproar in the Senate last March by suggesting that some good had come out of Canada’s government-funded, church-operated residential school system.
Those letters, Scheer says, contained “offensive” and “unacceptable” expressions of racism against Indigenous Peoples.
Angus makes it clear he doesn’t believe it’s sufficient to allow Beyak to continue to sit in the Senate, which he says lacks the necessary system of checks and balances to properly deal with the situation.
“In terms of what can be done now in the absence of any clear tools of accountability, I would remind you that as prime minister, your words carry an enormous moral weight,” Angus writes.
“If reconciliation is to be made real, government institutions must not be undermined by those spreading an agenda of such clear malice and falsehood.”
Beyak could not be reached for comment following Scheer’s decision.
Emails to Beyak’s office have gone unanswered and the voice mail box at her Senate office is full.
Earlier today, Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett issued a statement expressing disappointment at how long it took Scheer to kick Beyak out of the caucus, saying the delay allowed her to use her position to espouse her “ill-informed and offensive views” of history.
Beyak was named to the Senate by former prime minister Stephen Harper.
Last year, Scheer was urged by a number of Indigenous leaders, including Assembly of First Nations national chief Perry Bellegarde, to remove Beyak from caucus following remarks she made about the legacy of Canada’s residential schools.
“In this era of reconciliation there is no place for the kind of outdated and uninformed thinking expressed by Sen. Lynn Beyak,” Bellegarde said.