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NAN, Treaty #3 leaders call for senator's resignation

Nishnawbe Aski Nation and Treaty #3 leaders say Senator Lynn Beyak's residential school comments constitute a "national insult" and the member should resign.
LynnBeyakSized
Lynn Beyak

THUNDER BAY -- Grand chiefs of Nishnawbe Aski Nation and Treaty #3 are calling for Senator Lynn Beyak to resign, following comments she made that cast a silver lining on the legacy of residential schools.

"Senator Beyak’s repeated comments defending the Indian Residential School system are a national insult and unacceptable for a member of the Senate of Canada. Her callous dismissal of the horrors of the Residential School experience is unbefitting a member of the Senate, and today we join the growing calls for her immediate resignation,” said NAN Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler in a release. 

“Her misguided statements, including comparisons of her suffering to those who were forced to attend Residential Schools, are an insult to survivors and all the children who were lost. This makes a mockery of the Government of Canada’s efforts to move toward reconciliation.”  

During debate on March 7, 2017, the senator stated that an “abundance of good” has come from the Residential School system, and that the schools were “well-intentioned” and “mistakes” should not overshadow “good things” that happened.

Since then, the senator has rebuked pleas for her to learn more about the horrors of residential schools, claiming to have ‘suffered’ with those who attended the schools, and purporting "shining examples from sea to sea of people who owe their lives to the schools."

She has also said she'll remain a member of the Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, despite the committee's request for her to step down.  

“We find the comments made by Senator Lynn Beyak to be offensive and ignorant of the facts in history that our people still struggle with today," Treaty #3 Grand Chief Francis Kavanaugh said in the release.

"It also comes at the expense of an open dialogue with Canadians and First Nations. We are building partnerships with mainstream Canadians based on inclusion, equitable partnerships and education. This clearly shows a lack of sensitivity by the Senator with respect to the Indian Residential School experience and are requesting that she resign her position immediately.”

The grand chiefs cited the Government of Canada’s historic apology on June 11, 2008, in which then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the primary objectives of the Indian Residential School system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture: to "kill the Indian in the child."

Harper appointed Dryden resident Beyak in 2013. The leadership's joint statement addresses Beyak as local to the region in its response to her comments.  

"NAN and GCT#3 are especially dismayed that a member of the Senate hailing from Northwestern Ontario, an area spanning NAN and GCT#3 territory with one of the highest concentrations of residential schools in Canada, appears to be oblivious to the devastating legacy of these institutions, and the intergeneration effects they continue to have in First Nation communities," it reads.




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