[3] A Black Canadian,[4] she is the first woman and first person of colour to serve as mayor of the city,[5] and the first Black Canadian woman to serve as a mayor in Ontario.
[7] 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.
[9][10] 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.
[8] 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.