'Epitome of colonial thinking': Sask. Sen. Lillian Dyck reacts to Sen. Lynn Beyak's latest comments

Saskatchewan Sen. Lillian Dyck says she is bothered by fellow Sen. Lynn Beyak's comments that First Nations people should trade their status cards for Canadian citizenship.

On Sept. 1, Beyak published the following comment on her website:

"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."

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"This latest announcement is completely at odds with what she voted and it doesn't make any sense," said Dyck, who is a member of Gordon First Nation.

Beyak was part of a government committee that agreed Bill S-3 should be amended starting this fall. The bill is based on removing sexist elements from the Indian Act. For example, under Section 12 of the 1951 Indian Act, a First Nations woman who married a non-First Nations man lost her status.

After Beyak previously defended residential schools, she was removed from the Senate's Aboriginal peoples committee.

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Beyak met with members of the Sioux Lookout community, located in northwestern Ontario, in July.

Dyck said she isn't convinced Beyak took much away from the experience.

"She doesn`t seem to be really up to speed," she said.

"And what really bothers me is that she`s taken on the epitome of colonial thinking. She seems to be really stuck in a solid state, intransigent state of denial about Canadian history and what happened to Indigenous peoples."

Beyak declined an interview request from CBC earlier this week, but did make mention in a press conference about a CBC article published earlier this week regarding her comments.

A representative for Andrew Scheer, leader of the Conservative Party, indicated Beyak's views do not represent the position of the party. The statement acknowledged a need to continue addressing damage done by residential schools.