Lisa Mac Leod

Lisa MacLeod is a Canadian politician, who was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario on March 30, 2006 and subsequently re-elected on October 10, 2007, and again on October 6, 2011. MacLeod received the highest vote total of any Progressive Conservative in the 2007 provincial election. In the 2011 election, MacLeod received the most votes of any person, in any party in Ontario.

A member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, MacLeod was elected in the Nepean—Carleton electoral district. When she was elected in 2006, she was the youngest female conservative ever elected in Ontario, either federally or provincially.

MacLeod made headlines in the summer of 2007 when Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella suggested she would rather be at home baking cookies than attending a political event with then PC Leader John Tory. Kinsella later removed the posting and apologized to MacLeod. Following the incident MacLeod wrote the cookbook I'd Rather Be Baking Cookies: A Collection of Recipes from Lisa MacLeod and Friends.

MacLeod currently serves as the Official Opposition Critic for Education and is Vice-Chair of the Standing Committee on the Legislative Assembly, Vice Chair of the Ontario- Quebec Parliamentary Association and the Ontario Representative on the Commonwealth Parliamentarians Association- Canadian Women's Steering Committee. Previously she was Vice-Chair of the Standing Committee on Government Agencies, the Official Opposition Critic for Revenue and Government Accountability, Government and Consumer Affairs and Children and Youth Services, and was a member of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

MacLeod studied political science at St. Francis Xavier University. Prior to her election, MacLeod was a federal Conservative aide on Parliament Hill and a political commentator. Her family ties to politics include Donald MacLeod, a former Cabinet Minister under Robert Stanfield in Nova Scotia, and Donald Cameron, a former Premier of Nova Scotia. Her father, Danny MacLeod, served three decades as a municipal councillor in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia until his death on August 29, 2007.

MacLeod is married to Joseph Varner and they have one daughter, Victoria, who was born in 2005.