Caroline Mulroney

Caroline Anne Mulroney Lapham, (born June 11, 1974) is a Canadian businesswoman, lawyer and politician who currently serves as the President of the Treasury Board of Ontario and Minister of Francophone Affairs.

Born in Montreal, Quebec, she is the daughter of former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

Her father won the 1983 PC leadership race on her ninth birthday.

Her maternal grandfather,, was a Montreal psychiatrist whose patients included Margaret Trudeau.

From ages 10 to 19, she lived in 24 Sussex Drive, the home of the prime minister, and attended Lycée Claudel d'Ottawa.

Her father said in his biography that he believed that she was the most like him "in her mindset".

He also mentioned in an interview with La Presse that she would have been the most likely to follow his footsteps and that he "would not want to be a candidate against her".

Mulroney has an undergraduate degree in Government from Harvard and a J.D. degree from New York University School of Law.

During her time in law school, she developed an interest in public-interest law and interned at the New York Attorney General's office.

Mulroney is fluent in French, English, Spanish and Serbian.

After university, Mulroney worked as a financial analyst at Bear Stearns.

She briefly worked as a lawyer and associate at Shearman & Sterling, where she was part of the Compensation, Governance, and ERISA group.

She also worked as an associate director of the NYU Center for Law & Business.

When she was 14, Mulroney campaigned for Lucien Bouchard during the 1988 Lac St. Jean by-election.

After his victory, Bouchard sent her a handwritten thank-you note for her efforts in getting him elected to the PC government.

She felt betrayed after Bouchard defected from her father's party to the Bloc Québécois.

In 1990, she helped canvass for Ontario PC candidate Alex Burney in the 1990 Ontario election.

On July 29, 2002, Mulroney was admitted into the New York Bar.

Mulroney grew up in Ottawa before attending university in the United States, and worked there for 12 years until 2005 when she returned to Canada, worked in financial services and became involved in charitable work.

She also served on the board of directors of the Windsor–Detroit Bridge Authority.

Mulroney is the eldest of four children and only daughter of former Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney and his wife, Mila.

One of her younger brothers is former CTV Your Morning host Ben Mulroney.

Blizzard quoted an unnamed "Tory insider", on Mulroney's performance, when she was the surprise keynote speaker at a 2009 event celebrating the 25th anniversary of her father's administration.

That unnamed source said: "She certainly has the smarts and the glamour to offset the current prime minister in any future election."

Blizzard described her lack of political experience as a benefit, since she "won't wear any of the mistakes of the Stephen Harper government".

Andrew MacDougall, former director of communications to Stephen Harper, noted "But there's a reason Tories—both provincially and federally—have dreamt for a Mulroney candidacy for years" because "she's the closest thing the Tories have to royalty".

In 2011, she and her three sisters-in-law, Jessica Mulroney, Vanessa Mulroney and Katy Mulroney, co-founded The Shoebox Project, a non-profit that provides toiletries to women living in shelters.

On July 30, 2014, Minister of Transport Lisa Raitt appointed Mulroney to the Windsor–Detroit Bridge Authority, a body to oversee a second bridge across the Detroit River that separates Windsor, Ontario, from Detroit, Michigan.

The authority will oversee the new bridge's $4 billion construction, and the management of the bridge, once it has been completed, including setting the bridge tolls.

In 2015, she was a blogger for the website, GoGoNews, an online newspaper for children.

In addition, she has been a member of the board for the SickKids Foundation, a governor of the National Theatre School of Canada, and a member of the board of directors of the Fraser Institute.

On December 12, 2015, the Toronto Sun published a profile of Mulroney, in which journalist Christina Blizzard speculated as to whether her father's party would choose her as their new leader, to go head to head with Justin Trudeau, the current Prime Minister, the son of her father's old rival, Pierre Trudeau.

Mulroney was reinstated as an American lawyer on September 29, 2017 after her law licence had lapsed.

In 2015, Mulroney became vice president at BloombergSen, a Toronto investment counselling firm, until 2 August 2017, when she took a leave of absence upon announcing her candidacy.

On September 20, 2017, she attended the ground-breaking of the Brian Mulroney Institute of Government at St. Francis Xavier University with her father and mother.

When Mulroney served as joint master of ceremonies for the federal Conservative Party leadership convention in May 2017, she joked about Trudeau, "Who would want to run for their dad's old job?", but also said in a news interview, "I think politics is definitely something that I've always thought about as a career."

Mulroney responded to Blizzard with an email informing her that politics is not currently her priority telling her in an email: "While I am committed to public service and I am flattered by the suggestion, I am focused on my four young children and my work".

Patrick Brown recruited Mulroney as a star candidate for the PCs after meeting her when he helped collect donations for her charity.

A graduate of Harvard University and New York University, she was the elected MPP for the riding of York—Simcoe in the 2018 election as a member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario and was a candidate in the 2018 Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leadership election, placing third.

She served as Attorney General of Ontario from 2018 to 2019.