Lynn Beyak’s ‘racist’ letters are still online — a week after she was ordered to remove them

Letters sent to Senator Lynn Beyak remain online more than one week after the ethics officer of the Senate called for their removal.

Senate ethics officer Pierre Legault called the letters, which Beyak posted on her official government website, racist in an investigation which deemed she had violated the Senate Code of Conduct.

He said in that report last week that Beyak breached “sections 7.1 and 7.2 of the Code in posting 5 letters on her Senate website that contained racist content.”

He also asked her to remove the letters and apologize. She has not done either.

Global News reviewed the 103 “letters,” some dated as recently as Oct. 4, 2017, and found that the majority — which do not include full names of the writers — contained what could be described as racist or anti-Indigenous sentiments, or complained about political correctness or tax dollars going toward First Nations communities.

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Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, said Beyak is promoting misinformation by keeping the letters online.

“It’s been 9 days since the Ethics Commish ordered Senator Beyak to take down the racist letters from her website. She still refuses,” Bennett wrote on Twitter. “With each day that passes, she continues to deny painful truths, and promote misinformation and hate.”

Bennett says she will continue tweeting about the letters every day until they are removed.

A request for comment from Beyak Friday went unanswered.

After news of the letters was reported, Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer removed Beyak from the Conservative National Caucus.

At the time, Beyak said she would not remove the letters, and said she had never posted racist statements to her website.

Beyak said the letters were in support after she faced a wave of criticism for her views on First Nations status, writing in an open letter in 2017 that she believes First Nations people should give up their Indigenous rights and become Canadian citizens, and that she supported residential schools.

“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,” read the letter, which has since been removed from her website.

First Nations people born in Canada are already citizens of this country.

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*with files from Andrew Russell