Médéric Martin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Médéric Martin (1869-1946) was born January 22, 1869 to Salomon Martin, a carpenter and Virginie Lafleur. He studied at St. Eustache College and went on to open a cigar store in Montreal's East End and soon became a populist politician, best known for stirring up suspicion against English Montreal residents.
He served as a Liberal Member of Parliament for Sainte-Marie in the city's east side from 1906 to 1917.
But he was best known as a city politician. He became a city alderman in the Papineau district in 1906 until 1910 and then again from 1912 to 1914. That year he was elected mayor of Montreal, a position he retained until 1924 and regained from 1926 to 1928 when he was defeated by bitter rival Camilien Houde. His 12 years as mayor of Montreal made him, at the time, the city's longest-serving mayor.
Martin oversaw the city during a period when several other adjacent municipalities were merged, including Notre-Dame-de-Grace and much of the predominantly French speaking east side. He considered Montreal's new French-demographic dominance to be justification for discontinuing the longstanding tradition of alternating mayors between English and French speakers, a practice that has never returned.
