A thorn in Legault’s side, Joe Ortona will seek re-election as EMSB chair

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Joe Ortona says he will seek re-election as chair of the English Montreal School Board when anglophone boards hold elections on Nov. 3.

He announced his decision Thursday at a press conference in a Côte-des-Neiges park, surrounded by some fellow candidates.

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A lawyer, Ortona has been chair since 2020, when he won the job by acclamation. He was previously EMSB vice-chair and commissioner.

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Quebec’s biggest English board, the EMSB has 44,000 students in its youth and adult sectors.

Ortona has been a thorn in Premier François Legault’s side.

He is fighting the Coalition Avenir Québec government on several fronts, launching lawsuits against Legault’s secularism law (Bill 21) and his reinforcement of French language rules (Bill 96).

The EMSB and other boards are also battling in court against the CAQ government’s plan to scrap English school boards.

Quebec has already abolished French school boards; French schools are now operated by service centres overseen by the provincial government.

But English boards remain in place after the Quebec Superior Court ruled the Coalition Avenir Québec law eliminating boards should not apply to English ones. An appeal is expected to be heard late this year or next year.

On Tuesday, Ortona accused the CAQ government of scapegoating English-speaking Quebecers to score cheap political points.

The Legault government must “stop portraying the English-speaking community as a unilingual hub that refuses to learn French,“ he told The Gazette.

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In 2021, Ortona was dropped as a municipal candidate by mayoral hopeful Denis Coderre after the EMSB called on Quebec to withdraw Bill 96 and asked the federal government to refer the bill to the Supreme Court of Canada.

A resolution passed by the board at the time said, “Quebec is not a ‘nation.’”

After an uproar, Ortona stood by the board’s stance on Bill 96 but said the EMSB had “erred in bringing into question that Quebec is a nation.”

At the time, Legault said: “I was glad to see Denis Coderre show the door to his candidate from the English Montreal School Board. I think they are disconnected. It’s as if that group has become a radical group.”

This story will be updated.

ariga@postmedia.com

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