Born and raised in
Montreal,
Quebec, as the daughter of a
Trinidadian father and a
Franco-Manitoban mother, Clement attended the
University of Ottawa, earning degrees in both
civil law and
common law and was called to the
Ontario bar in 1991. She moved to Cornwall to begin working at what is now the Roy McMurtry Legal Clinic, ultimately becoming its executive director, and continued to work there up to the time of her appointment to the Senate. She was first elected to
Cornwall City Council in 2006 as a city councillor. She conducted her mayoral campaign on the themes of developing a more collaborative team-oriented approach to managing the city, as well as seeking a way to advance the city's proposed but long-delayed waterfront redevelopment project. Clement also ran as a
Liberal Party of Canada candidate for the electoral district of
Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry in the
2011 Canadian federal election and the
2015 Canadian federal election. ==References==