EMSB commissioner to face suspension due to ethics violation

The Suburban has learned that a commissioner on the English Montreal School Board will face a two-week suspension for an ethics violation.

Julien Feldman, commissioner for Ward 10, has been suspended for a period of 15 days and has been ordered to issue a public apology. He will be barred from any duties as a commissioner next month, from March 1 to 15. He cannot sit on advisory committees, but he will still be permitted to attend public meetings and to vote.

The ethics violation involves an incident from the 2024 school board election. At the time, Feldman was running against Dr. Shalani Bel. In a text message, Feldman referred to Shalani as “Ms. Gaza.” The epithet was based on comments about or a position on the Israeli-Hamas conflict at the time, comments that, the ethics commissioner ruled, were falsely attributed to Shalani.

The complaint was brought against Feldman at the same time as two other complaints, one against EMSB Chair Joe Ortona, and another against Ward 3 commissioner Paola Samuel, who was elected on Ortona’s slate. EMSB ethics commissioner Vincent Guida ruled, at the time, that the complaints against Ortona and Samuel were both baseless.

But in the complaint against Feldman, Guida ruled on Feb. 2 that Feldman’s conduct had indeed violated the board’s Code of Ethics.

A long-time EMSB commissioner, Feldman has been the subject of several other ethics violations complaints going back to 2010.

In the current instance, aside from the suspension, he is also required to issue a public apology during a Council of Commissioners meeting by the end of April, and is subject to a monetary fine amounting to a $250 donation to UNICEF.

Feldman did not respond to an interview request from The Suburban.