Marlene Jennings

Jennings was born in Longueuil, Quebec and graduated from Longueuil's Lemoyne d'Iberville High School. Her father, Preston Jennings, was an African American from Alabama and immigrated to Canada as a CPR Sleeping Car Porter. Her mother, Gilberte Garand, was a Franco-Manitoban of Belgian and French-Canadian ancestry.

Jennings succeeded Warren Allmand, the MP for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, in the reorganized riding of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine upon its creation in 1997. She was elected five times in the riding with consistent margins of between 10,000 and 20,000 votes, and her riding was considered one of the safest Liberal seats in the country. However, she fell to Quebec's "orange wave" in the 2011 Canadian federal election, losing her seat to Isabelle Morin of the NDP.

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In January 2012, it was reported that Jennings was considering an offer to run for the Coalition Avenir Québec in the 2012 Quebec general election.^[2] She ultimately declined.^[3] In a February 2012 Facebook post, Jennings explained that she had declined because she had never had a "passion" for provincial politics.^[4] For close to two years (2012 and 2013) she was the executive director of the Montreal YMHA. She had let her Liberal Party of Canada party membership lapse but re-joined in 2014.

Source: Elections Canada

Note: Conservative vote is compared to the total of the Canadian Alliance vote and Progressive Conservative vote in 2000 election.

Note: Canadian Alliance vote is compared to the Reform vote in 1997 election.