Appointment
Lynn Beyak, who makes her home in northwestern Ontario, is named to the Senate in 2013 by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
First Suspension
March 2017, Beyak delivers a speech in the Senate praising the "well-intentioned" residential school teachers and criticizing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for failing to focus on the positive effects emerging from that schooling system.
Spring 2017: Beyak is removed from the Senate Aboriginal Affairs Committee by interim Conservative Party leader, Rona Ambrose, for her instance that more good than bad effects poured forth from the residential school experience.
In a Senate committee meeting, Beyak presses residential school survivors about their time in the system and suggests that they endorse her plan to audit all First Nations for financial irregularities.
Beyak begins posting letters, gathered from across the country, on her Senate website from supporters of her stance. The letters are derogatory, misinformed, and riddled with negative stereotypes about Indigenous people. The Senator claims to have posted the letters to begin a dialogue about the goodness of the residential school experience.
January 2018: After refusing to remove the letters, Beyak is expelled from the Conservative National Caucus during the leadership tenure of Andrew Scheer. She continues to sit as a non-affiliated senator representing Ontario.
May 2019, Beyak is suspended from the Senate by a vote in the Upper Chamber. The suspension was limited to the remainder of the Parliamentary session. Beyak was positioned to resume sitting following the federal election of October 21, 2019.
September 2019, the racist and inflammatory letters are removed from Beyak's website by Senate authorities.
Once suspended, she was sent to anti-racism training, sponsored by the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres. After the first meeting, she was asked to leave for her role in fostering an unsafe learning environment, in part because of her persistence in claiming indigenous ancestry because her family adopted a First Nations child.
Afterwards, the Senator was sent to another course. Following her successful completion, and an apology, Beyak was recommended for re-instatement by the Senate's ethics committee.
Second Suspension
February 2020: Upon her return to the Senate, her colleagues once again had her suspended, for not adequately meeting the conditions for a successful return. This second suspension dissolved when Parliament was prorogued in August 2020.
Resignation
Monday January 25th, 2021, Beyak resigned from the Senate and retracted her apology ahead of a motion by independent Senator Mary Jane McCallum, a Cree residential school survivor, to have her permanently removed from the upper chamber.
The vote for permanent suspension was scheduled for February 2021, and would have been the first ever in Canada.
At the time of her retirement, Beyak was 71, leaving the senate 3 years prior to the mandatory retirement age. If the expulsion had gone through it is likely there would have been financial repercussions affecting her lifetime pension.
The Friendship Centre vision is to improve the quality of life for Indigenous people living in an urban environment by supporting self-determined activities which encourage equal access to and participation in Canadian society and which respect Indigenous cultural distinctiveness.
Sen. Lynn Beyak removed from Tory caucus over 'racist' post on website: Scheer. (2018, January 4). The Record, https://www.therecord.com/news/canada/2018/01/04/sen-lynn-beyak-removed-from-tory-caucus-over-racist-post-on-website-scheer.html
Tasker, J. P. (2021, January 25). Lynn Beyak, the senator who defended residential schools, is resigning, CBC News, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/beyak-retirement-1.5886435