Manitoba chiefs join push for Beyak’s resignation

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This article was published 19/09/2017 (2951 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba chiefs say Senator Lynn Beyak owes indigenous Canadians an apology for suggesting First Nations should trade their status cards for citizenship and be paid off “each Indigenous man, woman and child” for treaty obligations and land claims

“I support calls for Senator Lynn Beyak’s resignation,” said Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Arlen Dumas in a statement released Tuesday.

“For the the government of this day to allow room for Senator Beyak and her repeatedly uniformed comments in the Senate, personal opinion or not, is a reflection of the government’s lack of commitment to reconciliation,” the statement read.

Mayor Brian Bowman was among the first civic leaders to say the Conservative senator should give up her seat, followed by Edmonton’s mayor, then several MPs and First Nations leaders.

Bowman described Beyak’s comments to Indigenous people to trade in their status cards for Canadian citizenship “terrible” and “offensive,” in comments last Thursday.

“To have a member of the Canadian Senate be so ignorant of who Canadian citizens are, it’s deeply offensive,” Bowman, who is Métis, said on Thursday.

Beyak was appointed to the Red Chamber by former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper and was dismissed from the Senate’s Indigenous Affairs committee earlier this year after she doubled down on comments that residential schools had done “some good.”

The latest comments to land the controversial senator in hot water came in the form of an open letter, posted to her Senate website Sept. 1.

In it, she wrote: “None of us are leaving, so let’s stop the guilt and blame and find a way to live together.

“Trade your status card for a Canadian citizenship, with a fair and negotiated payout to each Indigenous man, woman and child in Canada, to settle all the outstanding land claims and treaties, and move forward together just like the leaders already do in Ottawa,” Beyak wrote.

“All Canadians are then free to preserve their cultures in their own communities, on their own time, with their own dime.”

Legally, indigenous Canadians are Canadian citizens and that includes First Nations, Metis, Inuit and other indigenous people. Only First Nations residents are governed by the Indian Act and carry status cards.Status cards are legally distinct from treaties.

Dumas and the chiefs also delivered the rebuke with a history lesson.

“To suggest that First Nations should trade their status cards for Canadian citizenship is a historically colonial way of thinking,” Dumas said.

“That dates back to the 1857 Gradual Civilization Act which was passed to support the aggressive assimilation of Indigenous peoples in what would become Canada,” Dumas said.

Confederation was in 1867.

“She must take responsibility for the thoughtless nature of her comments and step away from caucus. She also owes First Nations an apology and all Canadians an explanation on why she continues to make uninformed comments about Indigenous people,” Dumas said.

Beyak has not returned Free Press requests for comment.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca