Caroline Anne Mulroney Lapham, KC, MPP (born June 11, 1974)[1][2][3] is a Canadian businesswoman, jurist, lawyer, and politician who currently serves as the President of the Treasury Board of Ontario and Minister of Francophone Affairs.

[18][24] 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.

[30] 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.

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".

[31] 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?

[33] 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.

[11] 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.

[39] 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[40] website The Rebel Media and the Conservative Campaign Chair for the 43rd Federal Election.

[42][43][12] On February 4, 2018, Mulroney expressed concern to the Toronto Star that sending her children to private school might be used as political fodder,[44] 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.

[47][44] 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.

[citation needed] Notwithstanding her previous statements of having "great confidence" in Brown,[48] Mulroney tweeted disapproval of his decision to run.

[53] 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.

[55] On June 29, 2018, Premier Doug Ford appointed Mulroney to be the Attorney General of Ontario, despite never having practised law in Canada, and Minister of Francophone Affairs in his Executive Council.

[58] Mulroney voted in support of the Ford government's September 2018 proposal to use Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, commonly called the "notwithstanding clause", to overrule a judge's decision that legislation intended to shrink the size of Toronto City Council was in fact in violation of Charter rights.

For this position, she faced widespread condemnation from constitutional experts and politicians of all parties, particularly with respect to her duty to ensure the sanctity of the judicial process as Attorney General.

[59][60] In April 2019, as Attorney General of Ontario, Mulroney led a sweeping implementation of the budget austerity measures of the Ford administration on the justice file.

Three days later, on June 30, Mulroney was awarded the King's Counsel designation, which had been revived after having been discontinued in 1988 over its perception as a tool for rewarding political patronage rather than lawyerly skill.

[67] She remained committed to spending $1 billion to build Hamilton's light rail transit system,[70] but on Dec 16, 2019, the province announced it was withdrawing the promised funding.