MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT

Kelly McCauley

Conservative Edmonton West 43 statements translated

McCauley is a Conservative who argues for building pipelines, cutting red tape and taxes, and reducing the deficit. He criticizes the Liberal government as corrupt, anti-energy, and destructive to the economy. McCauley frequently calls out government hypocrisy and asks them to admit when they break promises.

Government Orders

Government Business No. 9—Changes to the Standing Orders

2026-04-27

“I want you to admit the government is dodging accountability. The whole point of Parliament is to approve how money is spent. My opponent already voted to spend money without oversight. How can he talk about parliamentary tradition when he supports ignoring the most basic point of our system?”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I would like the government to respect the parliamentary tradition of “what touches all should be approved by all”. Again, I keep going back to the original Model Parliament's being called. The very point of having a Parliament is approving such things. The member opposite voted in favour of the vote 40 slush fund. He voted in favour of taxpayers' money continuing to go out the door without oversight or approval of Parliament, violating the very reason Parliament exists and violating the very reason the Westminster system exists. If the member opposite wants to follow a parliamentary tradition, he should follow the one originally set by King Edward: “what touches all should be approved by all”.

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“I don't like that the other party wants to limit debate. In the past, oversight has exposed problems with their spending. I want to be able to criticize and oppose them more.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to finish the second half of my speech concerning Motion No. 9. As I mentioned earlier, the Liberals view the House not as a House of Parliament, it seems, but more as a theatre for themselves, where they tolerate no criticism and all they expect from people in the House are gratitude and cheers for their empty, performative politics. They very much live by Jean Chrétien's attitude of “It's called question period, not answer period.” There is a former Liberal MP from the House named John Stewart, who actually went on to the other place to be a senator. This is not the Jon Stewart whom the current Prime Minister loves so much. Senator Stewart stated about proceedings in the House, “slipping things through the house may seem smart in the short run. In the long run it works to discredit both the government and parliament.” I could not agree more, and Motion No. 9 discredits both Parliament and the government. I am going to go over a couple of examples of how oversight has exposed some of the corruption, some of the issues, with the current government. In the 42nd Parliament, when I was first elected, Liberals, when they had a majority with the current government House leader as their lead on the operations committee, brought through what was called the “vote 40 slush fund”. This was a $15‑billion slush fund set by the government, which presented it with no backing of what the money would be spent on. Again, I go back to King Edward when he formed the Model Parliament in 1295 and said, “what touches all should be approved by all”. The government seems to think that what touches all should be just approved by the Liberal government. The slush fund was $15 billion. When we asked one of the Liberal officials what the money was for, he said that it was presumptuous that the government would explain to Parliament what that $15 billion was for before we approved the spending. Vote 10 of the Treasury Board is normally about $200 million or $300 million. In the 42nd Parliament, under a majority, the government ran that up to $1 billion a year. For decades, it had been in the low ten millions, 20 millions or 30 millions of dollars. The government moved it up to $1 billion a year. It rammed it through because it had a majority. What happened in 2019 when the Liberals lost the majority? They backed away from the vote 40 slush fund, and it has not raised its ugly head again. In the operations committee, we were able to expose the ArriveCan scam that the government desperately tried to cover up. People remember that the Liberals tried to say that it was a life-saving measure and that it cost only a few million dollars, but of course, it cost well above $60 million. There was the GC Strategies scandal, in which two people working out of the basement of a house racked up $15 million, $20 million or $30 million in billing to taxpayers. With McKinsey & Company, another one, $120 million from the government was paying off its friends and insiders. We were able to expose that because we had an ability to keep the committee going and not be shut down by the government. Billions of dollars was spent by the government on management consultants at the same time as the Privy Council came to us and said that actually there were people within the government who could do the work, but it was still going out to McKinsey and other management companies to spread Canadian taxes around. Of course, there was the millions of dollars spent on the New York consul general's apartment on Billionaire's Row. The government desperately tried to shut that down. We were able to expose the spending because we had the ability, and they did not have the Liberal numbers to shut it down. In the public accounts committee, on which I sat, there was the issue of green slush fund, which of course had been approved by the then industry minister, who is now the finance minister. There was the Trudeau Foundation scandal. We were able to force ministers to actually show up. Of course in ethics, there was the WE scandal and there was showing the current Prime Minister and his conflicts. There was also the “other Randy” issue. I want to finish with a couple of quotes from Lester Pearson and John Diefenbaker. Pearson said he recognized that the health of Parliament has to rely on the opposition's “right to oppose, attack and criticize”. Diefenbaker said, “freedom always dies when criticism ends.” That is what Motion No. 9 is about: ending the criticism of the government. Again, the Liberals want solely an audience, not an opposition to stand up for taxpayers.

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Government Orders

2026-04-27

“I want to argue that the other party is attacking democracy. They betray voters and don't allow enough debate. A past leader grabbed someone. We should get to lead some committees and they shouldn't get to decide what we can debate. This is about transparency. They tax and spend too much without asking us. They call us obstructing when they don't want to show the budget. I'm mad they want to decide things without asking me.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, it is hard to fit in so much on an attack on democracy and explain it in four and a half minutes, but I will try. I am pleased to rise on Motion No. 9, another attempt by the Liberal government to quash all opposition and criticism of its government. Now, this is not about the legitimacy of the Liberal majority, however vile the betrayal of their constituents was by the MPs who crossed. It is still allowed within the Westminster system and I do respect that. I recognize the government as a majority. The Prime Minister commented that he was going to do things differently, with a less partisan approach to governing. Of course, that comment aged about as well as his comment that affordability is at its best in the last 10 years. I am fine with the Liberals adding more members to committees. I would note that when the Liberals formed the committees in June, they actually reduced the number of committee members they normally had, stating they did not have enough members to do the work. It is funny to see them now actually bumping up two people on committees, when really they could make do with one. Again, I am perfectly fine with it. They do have the majority. However, this House and Canadians deserve oversight from this government. For the sake of accountability and transparency, we need better oversight. That is why we are proposing that the operations committee, known as the mighty OGGO, the public accounts committee, the access to information committee, also known as the ethics committee, and the status of women committee maintain the current setup, which is traditionally led by the opposition, with the Conservatives and the Bloc making up the majority. Again, this is for accountability and transparency. Now, we have seen the contempt the Liberals have for this Parliament. It is clear again and again, and this goes back to 2015. The Liberal government always seems to say that it wants an audience and not an opposition. We have seen motions like this in the past. Going back to the 42nd Parliament, we had Motion No. 6 from this government. Many of the Liberals here today were here for Motion No. 6. That was a motion that would have gutted Conservative opposition members' ability to submit Order Paper questions. The government was going to decide what was a valid Order Paper question, not an elected MP. The minister would decide. Also under Motion No. 6, the government stated that it would decide what was an appropriate amount of debate. The Liberals would stop the Conservatives, the Bloc and the NDP from debating certain issues. Of course, we all remember that famous night of Motion No. 6, known as “elbowgate”, when the former prime minister manhandled the late Gord Brown and also elbowed an NDP member in the chest. During COVID, we saw Bill C-13 under the Trudeau government, and again, a majority of the members opposite were part of that government. With Bill C-13, the Liberals brought in a bill that would allow them, for 21 months, to have unlimited taxing and unlimited spending without any oversight or vote in this Parliament. The whole reason Parliament exists goes back to King Edward I, 1295, when calling the model Parliament, stating that “ what touches all should be approved by all”. Here we have the Liberal government under Bill C-13 saying that, for 21 months, what touches all should only be approved by the Liberals and not by all elected members. This government has a long history of trying to stamp out opposition. We have seen this government and my colleague from Winnipeg North constantly call out any opposition to Liberal plans as obstruction. Let us remember that the finance minister refused to table a budget last spring. He said there would not even be a budget in 2025, and yet when the Liberals finally tabled a budget, 10 months later, they accused the opposition of purposely delaying it. I understand I am out of time for this half of my speech about Liberal obstruction and blocking accountability. I look forward to continuing it afterwards.

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