Marcel Robidas

Marcel Robidas (November 4, 1923 – May 17, 2009) was a politician in the Canadian province of Quebec. Best known for serving as mayor of Longueuil from 1966 to 1982, Robidas was also a prominent supporter of Quebec sovereignty.

Robidas was born to a working class family in Montreal. When he was twelve years old, his father died of cancer; as the eldest son in his family, he was required to take over the running of a billiards room that his father had purchased shortly before his death. Robidas joined Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal during World War II and saw action as an infantryman in Belgium, France, and Germany. He met his wife Renée Lacour while overseas; the couple had fourteen children, twelve of whom were still alive at the time of his death. In 1947, he received a bachelor's degree from the Université de Montréal in social sciences, economics, and political science.

Robidas was first elected to the Longueuil City Council in 1961 and served as mayor from 1966 to 1982. A vocal proponent of amalgamation with neighbouring municipalities, he negotiated the merger of Longueuil with Jacques-Cartier, a boomtown that was five times as large and twice as populous as Longueuil, in 1969. He later founded an organization called Société pour le progrès de la Rive-Sud to promote further mergers, though provincial restrictions ultimately prevented the organization from being successful. In 2001, he supported the province's creation of a new amalgamated city centred around Longueuil that included seven neighbouring municipalities.

Robidas proposed the "twinning" of francophone and anglophone municipalities across Canada in the late 1960s, as a means of fostering better relations between the communities during an increasingly tense period. He himself established an exchange program with Whitby, Ontario, involving visits and cultural exchanges between the two communities, after a group of Whitby scouts canoed to Montreal's Expo 67 event.

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