OTTAWA — The Senate has voted to suspend Sen. Lynn Beyak a second time over derogatory letters about Indigenous Peoples posted on her website.
Senators have approved a report from the upper house’s ethics committee, which recommended Beyak be suspended without pay for the duration of the current parliamentary session.
The report was adopted “on division” — meaning with some opposition, though there was no recorded vote.
Beyak was kicked out of the Conservative caucus and eventually suspended without pay last May after refusing to remove the offensive letters from her website — a suspension that ended automatically when Parliament dissolved for last fall’s federal election.
She apologized on Tuesday, after which some of her former Conservative colleagues tried unsuccessfully to refer the matter back to the committee.
However, Independent senators took the position that Beyak needed to be suspended again while undergoing anti-racism training and that the matter could be revisited after that.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 27, 2020.
The Canadian Press
The Canadian Press
