Merrilee Fullerton

Merrilee K. Fullerton is a Canadian physician and former politician who represented Kanata—Carleton in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 2018 to 2023. A member of the Ontario Progressive Conservative (PC) Party, Fullerton was the minister of training, colleges, and universities from 2018 to 2019, minister of long-term care from 2019 to 2021, and minister of children, community and social services from 2021 to 2023.

Early life and education Fullerton was born in Whitehorse, Yukon, and grew up in the Beaverbrook neighbourhood of Kanata, Ontario. She is a graduate of the University of Ottawa's medical school.

Medical career Fullerton initially practiced from the Carleton Place and District Hospital before going into private practice as a family physician in the Ottawa area.

Columnist Fullerton wrote a number of columns in the Ottawa Citizen from 2004 to 2007. leading to a two-way race between Fullerton and Police Sergeant Rick Keindel. Fullerton won the nomination.

Fullerton came under fire during the 2018 campaign for her tweets, which were labelled Islamophobic by the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Committee, as well as for blocking Muslim leaders in her community on Twitter. She was also accused of being in favour of a two-tier healthcare system, a claim which she disputes.

After being elected in the 2018 Ontario general election, she was appointed to Premier Doug Ford's cabinet as the Minister of Colleges and Universities.

In 2019, Fullerton was shuffled and became the Minister of Long-Term Care.

In June 2021, Fullerton was reassigned as the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services. During her tenure, Ontario failed to meet its targets of 8,000 families getting funding for autism therapies by Fall 2022 and stopped updating the public and the press on progress on the file. The Ontario Autism Coalition complained that it had not been consulted by Fullerton and that she never gave a press conference on the issue. The by-election for her successor was scheduled for July 27, 2023.

Electoral record

Cabinet posts