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,[1] and a supporter of the Communist Party of Canada, which at the time was known as the Labor-Progressive Party.[2] 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[3] and targeted ridings held by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation.[4][2] 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.[5]
He remained president of Local 195 until March 1946 when he defeated by Earl Watson by 2,200 votes to 1,600 votes.[6]
Parent did not run in the 1948 Ontario general election, and his riding was re-taken by the CCF.[7][8] He died on December 25, 1961, at the age of 53.[9]