Our Politics Panel tackles the Alberta Party leadership race; which just got a whole lot more interesting, plus the ever-growing controversy surrounding Senator Lynn Beyak.
Growing List of Alberta Party Leadership Candidates
Independent MLA Rick Fraser has found a new home with the Alberta Party and has ambitions to be more than just an MLA. The member for Calgary-South East, announced he will join Kara Levis and Jacob Huffman in running for leadership of the Alberta Party. First elected as a PC in 2012, Fraser left the UCP caucus in September to sit as an independent.
Fraser isn't the only former Tory entering the fray as Stephen Mandel is expected to announce his leadership bid Wednesday. Mandel, who served as Edmonton mayor from 2004 to 2013, switched to provincial politics in 2014 and was named Minister of Health by late premier Jim Prentice. Mandel served as MLA until he was defeated by NDP candidate Bob Turning in the 2015 provincial election.
Senator Lynn Beyak fracas
Senator Lynn Beyak was dumped from the Conservative caucus last week after reportedly refusing to follow party leader Andrew Scheer’s demand that she remove ‘racist’ content from her website.
But Beyak says neither she nor her staff even spoke to Scheer, and that she only learned of her removal from his statement in the media.
Beyak is defending letters about Indigenous Canadians recently posted to her website. She claims a silent majority supports her position on residential schools and calls Scheer ‘inexperienced’.
The senator rose to notoriety in the spring of 2017 after she said there were positives that came out of Canada's residential school system. Some months later, she urged First Nations people to exchange their status cards "for a Canadian citizenship."
