Senator Lynn Beyak is removed from Conservative caucus

Controversial Senator Lynn Beyak has been removed from the National Conservative Caucus, according to a statement released today by Andrew Scheer, leader of the Conservative Party and Official Opposition.

“On Tuesday , January 2, 2018, I learned that Senator Lynn Beyak posted to her Parliamentary website approximately 100 letters from Canadians in support of her position on residential schools.

“While the vast majority of the letters focused on the history of residential schools, other letters contained comments about Indigenous Canadians in general. One of these comments stated:

“I’m no anthropologist but is seems every opportunistic culture, subsistence hunter/gatherers seeks to get what they can for no effort. There is always a clash between industrial/organized farming culture that values effort as opposed to a culture that will sit and wait until the government gives them stuff.”

Scheer said he demanded that Senator Beyak remove this content from her website, which he categorized as offensive and unacceptable, and racist to suggest that Indigenous Canadians are lazy compared to other Canadian.

She refused, so Scheer and Conservative Senate Leader Larry Smith removed Beyak from caucus. Scheer said racism would not be tolerated in the Conservative caucus.

Beyak made headlines in 2017 after telling First Nations people to give up their status cards in exchange for a one-time cash payment and suggesting they practise their culture “on their own dime.”

She also said that residential schools did more good than bad for Indigenous people