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 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." 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". 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 did not run as Caroline Lapham because, "no matter what I do, people just always call me Caroline Mulroney." 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. 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 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". 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.
42nd Parliament of Ontario In the
2018 Ontario election, Mulroney was elected to serve as the MPP for
York—Simcoe during the
42nd Parliament of Ontario. 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. As Minister of Francophone Affairs, Mulroney was pivotal in the creation of
l'Université de l'Ontario français, Ontario's first-ever university governed by Francophones for Francophone students. Mulroney also facilitated the modernization and first updates to Ontario's French Language Services Act in over 35 years. 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. 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. This included a $133 million cut to Legal Aid Ontario, cutting over 30 percent of their anticipated $456-million provincial allocation for basic access to justice services for Ontario's low-income citizens. The cuts were targeted at the community legal clinics serving the most vulnerable communities according to advocates. One group called the cuts a "directed attack" against Toronto and groups linked with challenges to the Ford political agenda. In 2019, Mulroney was shuffled to be
Minister of Transportation, and kept the Francophone Affairs portfolio. On June 27, 2023, Mulroney was administratively
called to the bar as a lawyer in Ontario. This call was made possible by a 2021 change to the province's
Barristers Act that automatically gave former Attorneys General the right to be called as lawyers. 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. The honour was awarded to all lawyers in the provincial Cabinet at the time.
44th Parliament of Ontario Mulroney was re-elected in the
2025 Ontario general election. She endorsed
Pierre Poilievre in the
2025 Canadian federal election. She introduced him at a press conference in Toronto.
Cabinet positions {{ministry box cabinet posts == Political positions ==