A look at notable ‘not criminally responsible’ cases in Canada

Here's a look at some other high-profile Canadian cases in which there was a not criminally responsible finding.

A judge has ruled that Pierre Ny St-Amand, 53, was not criminally responsible for the 2023 bus attack on a Laval, Que., daycare that killed two small children and injured six others. Superior Court Justice Éric Downs concluded Ny St-Amand was experiencing psychosis and could not discern right from wrong. He has been ordered detained in a psychiatric hospital.

Here’s a look at some other high-profile Canadian cases in which there was a not criminally responsible finding:

Blair Donnelly stabbed his 16-year-old daughter to death in Kitimat, B.C., in 2006 and was found not criminally responsible on account of a mental disorder. The decision drew renewed attention in 2023 when Donnelly was charged with aggravated assault after three people were stabbed at a Vancouver Chinatown festival. He was free on day release from a forensic psychiatric hospital at the time.

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shot and killed four people — two civilians and two police officers — from the window of his Fredericton apartment on Aug. 10, 2018. At his trial, evidence was presented that on the day of the shooting Raymond believed the end of times had arrived and he was surrounded by demons. Crown prosecutors argued Raymond’s delusions were not intense enough to prevent him from understanding that he was shooting humans, and that it was wrong. A jury found Raymond not criminally responsible in 2020.

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Isaac Brouillard Lessard had been found not criminally responsible because of mental illness five times for offences in 2014 and 2018 and was being followed by Quebec’s mental health board. But a coroner’s inquest would later hear he was resistant to treatment and wasn’t following court orders regarding his medication. On March 27, 2023, Brouillard Lessard fatally stabbed provincial police Sgt. Maureen Breau and seriously injured another officer before being shot dead by police in his apartment building in Louiseville, Que.