A Senate committee is recommending Sen. Lynn Beyak be suspended from the upper house for the rest of this parliamentary session after the Ontario senator refused to take down letters hosted on her website that have been widely condemned as racist. In a report tabled Tuesday, the Senate ethics committee said an appropriate sanction against Beyak for ignoring the Senate ethics officer's demands would be an extended break from the chamber. Beyak has said she believes the letters — some of which describe Indigenous people as lazy, opportunistic, pampered and inept — are not racist but rather "edgy and opinionated." The Senate administration should be directed to remove five letters from her website if she won't remove them herself, the report adds. "For these reasons, your committee is recommending that Senator Beyak be suspended from the Senate until the end of the current Parliament with certain conditions," the committee report reads.

Source: CBC News April 30, 2019 19:24 UTC