Cambridge MPP Belinda Karahalios was removed from the Ontario legislature on Tuesday morning by Speaker of the House Ted Arnott.
Last month, Karahalios announced that she had tested positive for the coronavirus on Nov. 19.
“I will not be able to enter Queens Park until November 30th,” Karahalios wrote on Twitter at the time.
“I was sick for a couple of days but am feeling much better.”
On Tuesday, Arnott stopped proceedings and asked her to leave the house.
“The member for Cambridge is obviously in the precinct and in the chamber at the present time in contravention of the current COVID-19 screening protocols that have been adopted by the legislature and I must now ask the member to withdraw from the chamber and leave the precinct,” the speaker said.
Karahalios refused the request and responded with, “the rules that you’ve set out is proof of double vaccination or proof of negative rapid antigen test, which I was able to provide this morning.”
Arnott then laid out the rules in this situation by saying, “the member knows full well that the current advice from the medical officer is that she must be out of the chamber for the next 90 days starting from the date in which she tested positive.”
He then asked her to leave several times before having her escorted from the building.
“After taking my seat to ask the Ford PC Gov a question the Speaker had me removed despite being the MPP least likely to spread COVID-19,“ Karahalios wrote on Twitter a short time later.
“This is an affront to democracy.”
Karahalios was elected to office as a Progressive Conservative candidate but was kicked out of the party in July 2020 after voting against a government bill that grants it powers to extend or amend some emergency orders a month at a time, for up to two years.
Comments