Ontario Progressive Conservative party leadership candidate Caroline Mulroney visited Sault Ste. Marie Monday evening, as she tours northern Ontario to speak to party members in her bid to become the party’s next leader.
“I decided to jump into politics last year when I put my name forward to be a candidate to be part of the team to defeat Kathleen Wynne, and when all these things happened in our party (sexual misconduct allegations against former PC leader Patrick Brown, his resignation and subsequent announcement of his intention to regain his job), and the leadership race was announced, I was worried we were going to lose the opportunity that we had to finally send the Liberals packing after 15 years,” Mulroney told SooToday.
“After talking to more and more people across my riding I was more convinced than ever…I decided I was the best person for that job (as party leader).”
A printed slogan, visible at Mulroney’s visit and speech at The Water Tower Inn Monday, read ‘Caroline, Let’s Get It Done.’
“I want to get done the great work we’ve done so far, there’s so much momentum for the PC party to defeat the Liberals. We need to turn the page. I say ‘let’s get it done’ because I’m part of a team, there’s a lot of us working hard to get this done, but I’m the leader who can defeat Kathleen Wynne.”
In a brief speech, Mulroney said “I am resolved to do better for the north,” promising to provide $200 million annually to the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund (NOHFC), doubling the current annual amount, and also to rewrite eligibility requirements for that funding, the dollars going to infrastructure, jobs, healthcare, education and broadband for remote communities.
Mulroney, a Toronto-based lawyer, businesswoman and married mother of four, is the daughter of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
“Some of my critics say I don’t have enough political experience for this job. Well, you know who has political experience? Kathleen Wynne, and look where that’s gotten us,” Mulroney told her audience, that comment met with laughter and applause.
Mulroney will also be running to be elected as MPP for the riding of York-Simcoe (in a bid to succeed fellow Tory Julia Munro) in the next provincial election, which is scheduled to be held on or before June 7.
Mulroney was welcomed and introduced at Monday’s event by Sault MPP Ross Romano, a longtime friend of former leader Patrick Brown.
“In speaking with Caroline…she spoke to me on a personal level and I was immediately moved by that. I could tell she was a person of great honesty and great integrity,” Romano said.
In 2011, Mulroney co-founded The Shoebox Project, a charity which provides essentials to women living in shelters across Canada.
Mulroney, on her first ever visit to the Sault Monday, is the first PC leadership candidate to visit the riding in the current leadership contest.
Other candidates running for the PC leadership are former party leader Patrick Brown, Christine Elliot, former MPP and PC Deputy Leader, Doug Ford, a former Toronto city councillor, and Tanya Granic Allen, a businesswoman, writer, commentator and conservative family values advocate.