Caroline Mulroney

The Honourable Caroline Mulroney QC MPP
Mulroney in 2018
Attorney General of Ontario
Incumbent
Assumed office June 29, 2018
Premier	Doug Ford
Preceded by	Yasir Naqvi
Minister of Francophone Affairs
Incumbent
Assumed office June 29, 2018
Premier	Doug Ford
Preceded by	Marie-France Lalonde
Member of the Ontario Provincial Parliament for York—Simcoe
Incumbent
Assumed office June 7, 2018
Preceded by	Julia Munro
Personal details
Born	Caroline Anne Murray Mulroney (1974-06-11) June 11, 1974 Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Citizenship	Canada United States
Political party	Progressive Conservative
Spouse	Andrew Lapham ​ (m. 2000)​
Children	4
Parents	Brian Mulroney Mila Pivnički
Relatives	Lewis H. Lapham (father-in-law) Ben Mulroney (brother) Jessica Mulroney (sister-in-law)
Residence(s)	Forest Hill, Toronto Lake Simcoe
Alma mater	Harvard University (A.B., 1996) New York University (J.D., 2001)
Profession	Client services and sales manager at venture fund firm, financial analyst, lawyer
Website	Campaign website

Caroline Anne Mulroney Lapham QC MPP (born June 11, 1974), is a Canadian businesswoman, lawyer and politician who is currently serving as the Attorney General of Ontario and Minister of Francophone Affairs since June 29, 2018. Mulroney is the elected MPP for the riding of York—Simcoe in the 2018 election. She is a member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. She is the only daughter and eldest child of the 18th Prime Minister of Canada, Brian Mulroney, and his wife Mila Mulroney. She was a candidate in the 2018 Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leadership election, placing third.

Mulroney grew up in Ottawa, before being educated at Harvard University and the New York University School of Law. She lived and worked in the United States 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 also a naturalized citizen of the United States.

Early life and education

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 CTV morning host Ben Mulroney. Her father won the 1983 PC leadership race on her 9th birthday. Her maternal grandfather, Dimitrije Pivnički, 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 French school. 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 law 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 Serbo-Croatian.

Career

After university, Mulroney worked as a financial analyst at Bear Stearns. She worked as a lawyer and associate at Shearman & Sterling then as an Associate Director of the NYU Center for Law & Business. In July 29, 2002, Mulroney was admitted into the New York Bar. Mulroney was reinstated as lawyer in September 29, 2017. after her law licence had lapsed.

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

On July 30, 2014, Minister of Transport Lisa Raitt appointed Mulroney and three other individuals, including Mark R. McQueen, who was an employer of Mulroney (under the name Lapham) at Wellington Financial and also was a former employee of Brian Mulroney's Prime Minister's office, 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. Tom Mulcair, leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, mocked her appointment, as an instance of the kind of corruption her father was suspected of. The Business News Network noted: "The Harper government hasn't explained yet what Mulroney Lapham's qualifications are to serve as a director of the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority."

Public life

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.

Mulroney came to prominence in 1991, during her father's tenure as prime minister, when Frank magazine ran a satirical advertisement for a contest inviting young Tories to "Deflower Caroline Mulroney". Mulroney's father was incensed and threatened physical harm toward those responsible before joining several women's groups in denouncing the ad as an incitement to rape.

Mulroney supported her father during the Oliphant hearings where he admitted to taking $225,000 in cash from Karlheinz Schreiber to lobby for Thyssen and planned to keep it secret. "The enormity of those events scarred me and my family for life", her father said. During the hearings, it was revealed that all the Mulroney children's university education was paid from the money that her father received from Schreiber.

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.

Speculation about political career

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. 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".

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".

Entry into politics

Patrick Brown recruited Mulroney as a star candidate for the PCs after meeting her when he helped collect donations for her charity. On August 2, 2017, Mulroney announced that she would seek the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario nomination in the York—Simcoe constituency for the 2018 provincial election by releasing a video in which she stated that the government needs to "get out of the way", manage taxes properly and focus on affordability. She explained that she chose Mulroney as her political name because Mulroney Lapham was too long and she didn’t run as Caroline Lapham because, “no matter what I do, people just always call me Caroline Mulroney.” On September 10, 2017, Mulroney was acclaimed the PC candidate in York—Simcoe. Her father had previously revealed that she had consulted him over a career in politics and that she had decided to enter provincial instead of federal politics to be closer to her family.

Leadership Race

See also: Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario leadership election, 2018

Following the sudden resignation of Ontario PC leader Patrick Brown on January 25, 2018, due to allegations of sexual misconduct, Mulroney's name was raised as a possible successor.

On February 4, 2018, she declared her candidacy for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario by releasing a video online. Mulroney has the most support from the federal Conservative caucus with 10 members. She was supported by at least four former Patrick Brown advisers: PC campaign chair Walied Soliman, ex-campaign manager Andrew Boddington, ad guru Dan Robertson, and strategist Hamish Marshall, the former director of controversial website The Rebel Media and the Conservative Campaign Chair for the 43rd Federal Election. Her campaign vice-chair was Derek Vanstone, Stephen Harper's former deputy chief of staff and a former Air Canada executive.

On February 4, 2018, Mulroney expressed concern to the Toronto Star that sending her children to private school might be used as political fodder, and after the leaders' debate on February 28, 2018, she walked away from the post debate scrum when being asked about why she sends her children to private schools by the Ottawa Citizen’s David Reevely.

Mulroney was criticised by some, including Doug Ford, for living most of her adult life in the United States, but she dismissed that by saying: "I've lived the majority of my life in Canada and Ontario".

Also running for the leadership were Ford, Christine Elliott, Tanya Granic Allen and, for a time, Patrick Brown who registered as a candidate on February 18, 2018, before withdrawing a week later. Notwithstanding her previous statements of having "great confidence" in Brown, Mulroney tweeted disapproval of his decision to run. Mulroney urged Brown to resign from the leadership race and asked the other candidates to join her call. However, Ford and Elliott did not do so with Elliott specifically saying that the party had decided who could run for leader. Mulroney criticised Ford and Elliott for their stance.

Two workers in Mulroney's camp privately admitted to CBC News in separate conversations that she was not in the lead while two former MPs who had endorsed Mulroney, Paul Calandra and Parm Gill, moved their support to Elliott.

In the leadership election held March 10, 2018, Mulroney came in third, behind winner Doug Ford and runner-up Christine Elliott, and was eliminated after the second ballot.

Political positions

After winning her riding nomination, Mulroney criticized the Liberal government for its minimum wage hike. During the leadership, Mulroney stated that she was in favour of using the "People's Guarantee" as a "starting point" for the PCPO's 2018 election campaign. She is opposed to the introduction of a carbon tax. She supports cuts in hydro rates and child care rebates, and remains committed to spending $1 billion to build Hamilton's light rail transit system.

Personal life

Mulroney is married to Andrew Lapham, chairman of Blackstone Canada, and the son of former Harper's Magazine editor Lewis H. Lapham and grandson of Lewis A. Lapham. Mulroney and Lapham met at a blind date at a pub which was set up by one of her Harvard friends. They were married on September 16, 2000, at Church of Saint-Léon-de-Westmount in Westmount, Quebec. It was covered by The New York Times as well as Canadian media. Attendees included such notables as George H. W. Bush, Conrad Black, Queen Noor of Jordan, and Joe Clark. All attendees, including catering staff, had to sign confidentiality agreements.

Mulroney and her husband lived in the United States until 2005, where she acquired U.S. citizenship, leading to the observation by the Toronto Star that she would have "renounced" her "allegiance" to Canada and the Queen when taking the US Oath of Allegiance. She had the first of their four children on October 30, 2004, while still living in New York. In 2005, she and her family moved back to Toronto where they live in a house in Forest Hill, purchased for $1.8 million in 2006. She has two daughters and two sons: the boys attend Upper Canada College. In May 2017 the Laphams acquired a property in the Jackson's Point neighbourhood on Lake Simcoe for $2.75 million which was transferred to her on July 11, 2017, 22 days before announcing her run as a candidate in York—Simcoe.

Election results

2018 Ontario general election: York—Simcoe
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Progressive Conservative	Caroline Mulroney	26,050	57.26	+16.84
	New Democratic	Dave Szollosy	10,655	23.42	+5.54
	Liberal	Loralea Carruthers	6,182	13.59	-20.94
	Green	Alexandra S. Zalucky	2,195	4.83	-1.45
	Libertarian	Ioan Silviu Druma-Strugariu	259	0.57	-0.32
	Moderate	Franco Colavecchia	150	0.33	–
Total valid votes			45,491	100.00
Total rejected, unmarked and declined ballots			553
Turnout			46,044	54.9
Eligible voters			83,837
	Progressive Conservative hold		Swing		+5.65
Source: Elections Ontario

External links

• Official website