Alex Parent

Alexander A. (Alex) Parent was a trade union official and, for one term, was a member of the Ontario Legislative Assembly.
Parent was president of United Auto Workers Local 195 in Windsor, Ontario in the 1940s, and a supporter of the Communist Party of Canada, which at the time was known as the Labor-Progressive Party. In the 1945 Ontario general election, Parent was nominated by the UAW-CIO as one of three Labour candidates in the election. Parent ran in Essex North, George Burt, the UAW's Canadian director, ran in Windsor-Walkerville and Windsor mayor Arthur Reaume ran in Windsor—Sandwich. All three were jointly nominated by the Communist Labor-Progressive Party and the Ontario Liberal Party and ran as Liberal-Labour candidates and targeted ridings held by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation.
Parent was elected, and initially sat with the Liberal Party but quit the Liberal group in the legislature in January 1946 in order to sit as a "straight Labor representative", working and voting with Labor-Progressive MPPs J.B. Salsberg and A. A. MacLeod.
He remained president of Local 195 until March 1946 when he defeated by Earl Watson by 2,200 votes to 1,600 votes.
Parent did not run in the 1948 Ontario general election, and his riding was re-taken by the CCF.
He died on December 25, 1961, at the age of 53.