Jennings, Marlene

Quebec, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce - Lachine, Liberal Party of Canada

Marlene Jennings is the first black woman from Quebec to be elected to the House of Commons.

Ms. Jennings was first elected as Member of Parliament for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-Lachine in June 1997. She was re-elected in 2000 and 2004.

Ms. Jennings serves as Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister with special emphasis on Canada-US. Ms. Jennings has also served as Parliamentary Secretary both to the Minister for International Cooperation and to the Solicitor General of Canada. Most recently Ms. Jennings was a member of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics and of the Sub-Committee of International Trade of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

Professionally, Ms. Jennings boasts more than 10 years experience in the area of policing, first as a member of the Quebec Police Commission and then as Deputy Commissioner for Police Ethics for the Province of Quebec. She has also gained more than twenty years of community and professional experience in the fields of employment equity and communications namely for women, Aboriginal peoples, and ethnic and racial minorities.

Ms. Jennings was born in 1951, on the South Shore of Montreal. Bilingual, she was educated at McGill University in English Literature and Psychology. She completed her Bachelor of Law (LL.B.) at the Université du Québec à Montréal, and in 1988 she became a member of the Québec Bar Association. She also completed part of an Executive M.B.A. Program at Concordia University.

Ms. Jennings has been married to Luciano Del Negro since 1974, and they have a daughter, Anne-Darla, born in 1992.

majority seats = 155