NDG-Lachine
Marlene Jennings aims for 6th term
Article mis en ligne le jeudi 28 avril 2011
Photo: Anja Karadeglija
Liberal candidate Marlene Jennings hopes to be reelected as the MP in NDG-Lachine.
Marlene Jennings has represented the riding of NDG-Lachine since 1997, and she’s hoping to hold on to her seat in this election by emphasizing the Liberal Party election platform’s “family pack.”
“It’s to help Canadian families who are struggling with the burden of raising children while working, taking care of chronically ill or aging family members and parents,” she said.
The platform includes promises of a six-month EI compassionate leave for people who take time off work to care for chronically ill or aging family members, and a tax credit to help cover caregivers’ expenses, said Jennings.
It also includes a promise of $1,000 a year for all post-secondary students in Canada – $1,500 for low-income students – as well as increasing the Guaranteed Income Supplement for seniors, she said.
Jennings said that, if she is reelected, she would also focus on local issues, like airport noise.
She has been working on the problem since Dorval was added to the riding in 2004, and has written a private members’ bill addressing airport noise that she plans to table if she is reelected, she said.
Other important local issues include poverty, especially the need for affordable and social housing, the lack of day care spaces, crime prevention, and support for community organizations, Jennings noted.
A lawyer by trade and the mother of a teenager, Jennings says that her life mirrors that of many women her age. “Balancing work, family, I live it. It’s part of my daily life, who I am,” she said.
In the last election, Jennings won with 44.62 per cent of the vote. The Conservative, Bloc and NDP candidates all received nearly the same amount of support, around 15 to 16 per cent of the ballots each. The Green candidate, Jessica Gal, garnered nearly eight per cent of the vote.
Gal is running again in this election, her third. The NDG native is a Concordia graduate and a professional violinist who has worked for nonprofit organizations.
She believes that the NDG-Lachine riding faces three major issues at the moment – poverty, access to English language education for anglophone children, and greenspace protection, she told the website deliberation.ca.
The Conservatives have a new candidate this time around. Matthew Conway grew up in Montreal’s west end and lived in NDG for nine years. According to his website, he believes that important issues facing the region include “the Earl Jones scandal and tackling other white-collar criminals, improving family policies, tackling crime, and regional economic development.”
Isabelle Morin, who is running for the NDP, is a recent graduate of the University of Sherbrooke, and a French-language and drama teacher at Cavelier-De LaSalle.
The Bloc candidate, Gabrielle Ladouceur-Despins, is a University of Montreal graduate who currently works as an assistant economist for Développement économique Canada, as well as the Centre visuel de Montréal Nord. On her Facebook page, she describes herself as a young feminist who is passionate about Quebec and social justice.
David Andrew Lovett is running as an independent, while Rachel Hoffman is the Marxist-Leninist candidate.